Genre | THE LABOR FILM DATABASE

24 Days in Brooks (2009)

24m; Canada
Director: Dana Inkster

In a decade, tiny Brooks, Alberta has been transformed from a socially conservative, primarily Caucasian town to one of the most diverse places in Canada. Hijabs have become commonplace, downtown bars feature calypso and residents speak 90 different languages. Immigrants and refugees have flocked here to work at Lakeside Packers – one of the world’s largest slaughterhouses. Centering on the 24 days of the first-ever strike at Lakeside, this film is a nuanced portrait of people working together and adapting to change. They are people like Peter Jany Khwai, who escaped war in Sudan, wears an African shirt and a cowboy hat, and affirms his Canadian identity as well as his determination to fight for his rights. Or Edil Hassan, a devout Muslim born in Somalia, who counts her hours of organizing and picketing among her proudest moments. As 24 Days in Brooks shows, people from widely different backgrounds can work together for respect, dignity, and change – even though getting there is not easy.

24 Days in Brooks was produced as part of the Reel Diversity Competition for emerging filmmakers of colour. Reel Diversity is a National Film Board of Canada initiative in partnership with CBC Newsworld. The DVD includes the original English version of the film and the English version with French subtitles.
Contact Info: http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=56986

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 29, 2011 in Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

24 City (Er shi si cheng ji) (2008)

29 Oct

112m; China
Director: Jia Zhangke
Stars: Jianbin Chen, Joan Chen and Liping Lü

Follows three generations of characters in Chengdu (in the 1950s, the 1970s and the present day) as a state-owned factory gives way to a modern apartment complex.
Cinema Guild, Ryan Krivoshey: rkrivoshey@cinemaguild.com

“Change and a city in China. In Chengdu, factory 420 is being pulled down to make way for multi-story buildings with luxury flats. Scenes of factory operations, of the workforce, and of buildings stripped bare and then razed, are inter-cut with workers who were born in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s telling their stories – about the factory, which manufactured military aircraft, and about their work and their lives. A middle-aged man visits his mentor, now elderly; a woman talks of being a 19-year-old beauty there and ending up alone. The film concludes with two young people talking, each the child of workers, each relaying a story of one visit to a factory. Times change.” IMDB; written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 29, 2011 in Drama, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Working Class

2040: An Equal Pay Odyssey (2009)

25 Oct

90m; UK
Director: Gary Williams

It’s 40 years since the Equal Pay Act, but when will the gender pay gap close?

Contact: G.Williams@unison.co.uk

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 25, 2011 in Documentary, Women

19: Victoria, Texas (2006)

25 Oct

4m; US
Director: Dolissa Medina

Experimental short film about undocumented immigrants who died while trapped inside a tractor near the town of Victoria, Texas.

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 25, 2011 in Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration

1900 (Novecento) (1977)

25 Oct

245m; Italy
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring: Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu and Dominique Sanda

Set in Italy, the film follows the lives and interactions of two boys/men, one born a bastard of peasant stock (Depardieu), the other born to a land owner (de Niro). The drama spans from 1900 to about 1945, and focuses mainly on the rise of Fascism and the peasants’ eventual reaction by supporting Communism, and how these events shape the destinies of the two main characters.

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 25, 2011 in Drama, Working Class

1877: Grand Army of Starvation (1987)

25 Oct

30m; US (click above for excerpt)
James Earl Jones narrates the first film made by the American Social History Project’s series on American working people and U.S. history. Using rare documents and pictures, it explores the massive national railroad strikes of 1877, a watershed event in Pittsburgh and U.S. history

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 25, 2011 in Documentary, Drama, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Transportation

15 Days With You (15 Dias Contigo) (2005)

25 Oct

94m; Spain
Director: Jesus Ponce

Released back onto the streets after serving her time behind bars, a woman determined to keep out of trouble crosses paths with a shady old friend who might just drag her under in this drama from first-time director Jesus Ponce. Isabel (Isabel Ampudia) has barely been out of the joint for a day when she goes to the local hostel to rent a room and runs across her old pal Rufo (Sabastian Haro). Though Isabel knows that she would have to jettison her past in order to build any kind of sustainable future, the fact remains that she has no home to speak of so she reluctantly accepts Rufo’s offer to become roommates. Rufo is an AIDS-afflicted junkie who earns a meager living by parking cars, but while he’s a generous soul at heart he’s still an unpredictable addict willing to do anything for his next fix. Upon moving in with Rufo, Isabel begins to connect with a number of her new neighbors in the barrio – including friendly shop assistant Manuela (Mercedes Hoyos). At first it seems as if Isabel may be mindful enough to live on the streets without succumbing to the dangers that such a life implies, but when Rufo nicks a handbag and kills his dealer any sense of low-rent stability quickly dissipates.
~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 25, 2011 in Drama, Women

10 Items or Less (2006)

25 Oct

82m; US
Director: Brad Silberling
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Paz Vega and Jonah Hill

An actor prepping for an upcoming role meets a quirky grocery clerk and the pair hit the road to show one another their respective worlds.

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 25, 2011 in Drama, Entertainment Industry, Service Workers

Play for Today: Hard Labour (1973)

25 Oct

70m; UK
Director: Mike Leigh

Brutally harsh study of an aging Englishwoman and her daily grind cleaning the homes of the wealthy. She returns to her own home each night to face whines and rants from her husband, an alcoholic custodian.

From the BBC series “Play for Today.”

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 25, 2011 in Drama, Service Workers, Women

10,000 Black Men Named George (2002)

25 Oct

95m; US
Director: Robert Townsend
Starring: André Braugher, Charles S. Dutton & Mario Van Peebles
Dramatic film inspired by the life of black organizer, A. Philip Randolph (Braugher), an early champion of the Civil Rights movement. From1925 to 1937, Randolph led the railway car porters’ bruising battle against the notoriously anti-union Pullman Company, one of the most powerful companies in the United States in the 1920’s. His efforts helped create the first black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Charles S. Dutton portrays Webster, the union’s Chicago-based organizer.Mario Van Peebles plays Ashley Totten, one of the founding members of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.Philip Randolph (Braugher) was an ardent socialist and publisher of a struggling radical Harlem magazine called “The Messenger.” Because traditional trade unions such as the American Federation of Labor (AFL)had not yet invited the black working-class to join in the 1920’s, the black labor movement was initiated by the railway porters who worked on the sleeping cars for the Pullman company. Although they were proud of their profession, the porters were often humiliated and dismissed by the upper-class white passengers. They were grossly underpaid. In the eyes of the Pullman Company and many of their patrons alike, the porters were not seen as individuals and were simply referred to “George” after the owner of the railway company.
Originally broadcast on Showtime on February 24, 2002