108m; Italy
Director: Giuseppe De Santis
Synopsis: Francesca and Walter are two-bit criminals in Northern Italy, and, in an effort to avoid the police, Francesca joins a group of women rice workers. She meets the voluptuous peasant rice worker, Silvana, and the soon-to-be-discharged soldier, Marco. Walter follows her to the rice fields, and the four characters become involved in a complex plot involving robbery, love, and murder
38m; South Korea
Director: Jungmin Cho
Synopsis: Fired for trying to organise a union, contract workers at GM Daewoo go to extreme measures, holding a sit-in strike from the perch of a CCTV tower. With undertones of Michael Moore’s Roger and Me, the film exposes the brutal treatment irregular workers face in their struggle
94m; U.S.
Director: Michael Curitz
Cast: Paul Muni,
Synopsis: An immigrant coal miner finds himself in the middle of a bitter labor dispute between the workers and the mine owners.
28m
Synopsis (WV Div. of Culture): Using archival footage, the story of this 1960’s populist uprising in West Virginia is told in cinema verité style. Interviews with several miners with black lung are mixed with comments by many West Virginia experts on coal mine safety to tell a compelling story of their success fighting their own union, the State Legislature, and the U.S. Congress. Their victory was the much-heralded Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. Congressman Ken Hechler, primary author of the bill, is shown addressing miners in Kanawha County. Doctors, labor leaders, and government officials of the day are also interviewed.
Contact: MSHA Printing & Training Materials Distribution, http://www.msha.gov/TRAINING/prodintr.htm
245m; U.S.
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Synopsis (from NYT): Frederick Wiseman, one of the giants of American documentary filmmaking, spent a month in the fall of 1996 shooting 110 hours of footage of life in a small New England town, and this four-hour-and-eight-minute feature was the result. As is his custom, Wiseman has added no narration or explanatory titles and prevents his camera from intruding any more than is necessary; the result is a lively and direct look at how a community functions. The city of Belfast, Maine has suffered an economic downturn in recent years, and the town is gearing up for a new business (a credit card collection facility) that it hopes will give the local economy a boost. In the meantime, the people of Belfast go on with their lives, trapping lobsters, canning fish, making doughnuts, teaching school, handling court cases, helping the poor and indigent, staging a local production of Death of a Salesman, celebrating holidays, and trying to make the most of their evenings and weekends. Belfast, Maine enjoyed an enthusiastic response in its screening at the 1999 Montreal Film Festival and was scheduled for broadcast on PBS early in 2000.
90m; Portugal
Director: Flora Gomes
Cast: Jorge Quintino Biague, Marcelo Cabral and Jacquelina Camara
Synopsis: A beautiful, intelligent and flirtatious young girl, Yonta, is secretly in love with a friend of her parents, Vicente, a hero of the war of independence. Vicente is unaware of her passion as she is of the love of a young man who sends her anonymous love letters.
132m; U.S.
Director: Tim Robbins
Cast: Hank Azaria, Rubén Blades and Joan Cusack, Bill Murray, Carey Elwes, Vanessa Redgrave
Synopsis (IMDB): In 1930s New York Orson Welles tries to stage a musical on a steel strike under the Federal Theater Program despite pressure from an establishment fearful of industrial unrest and red activity. Meanwhile Nelson Rockefeller gets the foyer of his company headquarters decorated and an Italian countess sells paintings for Mussolini.
Trailer
29:03; U.S.
Director: Mark Catlin
Cast: Studs Terkel
Synopsis: “Studs Terkel narrates this fast-paced history of occupational health and safety in the U.S. from the Industrial Revolution to the 1970s, which OSHA produced in 1979. Rare archival footage and photos illustrate the problems behind dramatic tragedies as well as the daily dangers that put workers at risk for long-term health problems. It also connects the health and safety movement with the civil rights and environmental movements. This is one of three wonderful films produced and distributed by OSHA during the administration of Dr. Eula Bingham – Can’t Take No More; Worker to Worker; and OSHA. Then in 1981, the new head of OSHA, under the Reagan Administration, Thorne Auchter recalled most copies and they disappeared. A few copies were kept alive by union officials who refused to return their copies. The penalty for being discovered in possession of one of these films was losing all OSHA funding for their safety and health programs.”
104m; U.S.
Director: John Wells
Cast: Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, Tommy Lee Jones, Maria Bello, Kevin Costner
Synopsis: A year in the life of three men trying to survive a round of corporate downsizing at a major company – and how that affects them, their families, and their communities.
Trailer
84M; U.S.
Director: Peter Lord/Nick Park
Cast: Mel Gibson, Julia Sawalha and Phil Daniel
Synopsis (IMDB): Having been hopelessly repressed and facing eventual certain death at the chicken farm where they are held, Rocky the rooster and Ginger the chicken decide to rebel against the evil Mr. and Ms. Tweedy, the farm’s owners. Rocky and Ginger lead their fellow chickens in a great escape from the murderous farmers and their farm of doom.
Trailer
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