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Category Archives: Genre

Braddock America

2013
France (in English)
100m
Directors: Gabriella Kessler, Jean-Loïc Portron

Writer: Jean-Loïc Portron
Braddock, Pennsylvania has been the home to key events that have greatly shaped American history. Today, it is struggling to reinvent itself and stay relevant.

In its own way, through immigration, industrialization, the rise of trade unionism and its destiny in question, Braddock tells a story of America: a rebellious, combatant America inhabited by men and women who refuse to accept the violence inflicted upon them. “Resist much, obey little,” Walt Whitman urged his fellow citizens; and indeed his words could be the motto of this film. The Monongahela Valley has been heavily stricken by the steel crisis and the shutdowns of the mills in the 80’s. It is probably easier to find more enchanting places in the world, but if many don’t imagine leaving the valley, it is because they know that this tiny parcel of land bears the traces, buried in its soil and in their memories, of events that helped build the history of their nation. This same awareness leads them to believe that such a special place might one day help map out a future for the United States. http://program33.com/braddock-america/

10/30/2014 NYT review: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/movies/braddock-america-the-story-of-a-rust-belt-struggle.html?_r=0

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Posted by Labor Film Database on November 19, 2014 in Cities-Urban, Documentary, Global Economy, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Labor History, Manufacturing, Working Class

Second Shift: From Crisis to Collaboration

19 Nov

Directed by Tom Lietz
1 hr, 37m
website: http://www.secondshiftfilm.com/

When GM prepared to pull out of Lansing, a team of government, business, labor and other community leaders convinced the auto giant to invest over a billion dollars instead. This documentary tells the story of successful regional collaboration to create the “second shift” for a community in crisis.

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Posted by Labor Film Database on November 19, 2014 in Big Business/Corporations, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Manufacturing, Technology, Transportation

The Overnighters

19 Nov

2014
Directed by Jesse Moss
Runtime: 1 hr, 30m

In the tiny town of Williston, North Dakota, tens of thousands of unemployed hopefuls show up with dreams of honest work and a big paycheck under the lure of the oil boom. However, busloads of newcomers chasing a broken American Dream step into the stark reality of slim work prospects and nowhere to sleep. The town lacks the infrastructure to house the overflow of migrants, even for those who do find gainful employment.

Over at Concordia Lutheran Church, Pastor Jay Reinke is driven to deliver the migrants some dignity. Night after night, he converts his church into a makeshift dorm and counseling center, opening the church’s doors to allow the “Overnighters” (as he calls them) to stay for a night, a week or longer. They sleep on the floor, in the pews and in their cars in the church parking lot. Many who take shelter with Reinke are living on society’s fringes and with checkered pasts, and their presence starts affecting the dynamics of the small community. The congregants begin slinging criticism and the City Council threatens to shut the controversial Overnighters program down, forcing the pastor to make a decision which leads to profound consequences that he never imagined.

A modern-day Grapes of Wrath, award-winning documentary The Overnighters engages and dramatizes a set of universal societal and economic themes: the promise and limits of re-invention, redemption and compassion, as well as the tension between the moral imperative to “love thy neighbor” and the resistance that one small community feels when confronted by a surging river of desperate, job-seeking strangers.

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Posted by Labor Film Database on November 19, 2014 in Construction Trades, Documentary, Global Economy, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing

A Day’s Work (2015)

19 Nov

“A Day’s Work” is a documentary film that examines the landmark workplace death of 21-year-old Lawrence
DaQuan “Day” Davis through the eyes of his family and the analysis of experts. Day was an employee of a
temporary staffing agency working at the Bacardi bottling plant in Jacksonville Florida in 2012. He was killed
90 minutes into the first day of the job – the first job of his life. The film introduces the prospective that the
temporary staffing industry makes workplaces more dangerous, is used to hide the safety records of some of
the biggest employers in the country, and makes the American Dream harder to reach for millions of working
people. With thousands killed in preventable workplaces accidents every year in the US, the film provides a
reminder of the cost of just one individual by vividly looking into the life and perspective of Day’s 17-year-old
sister Antonia.

90 minutes before he was killed on his first day of work as a temporary employee, 21-year-old Day Davis
texted a picture of himself to his girlfriend, excited for their future. Now Day’s sister, 17-year-old Antonia,
searches for answers. An investigation reveals the issues that led to Day’s death and how the $100 billion
temporary staffing industry is putting millions of American workers at risk.

Dave DeSario
tempemployees@gmail.com
(631) 374-6458

Documentary, 2015
TRT 54 min
Dir: David M Garcia
Prod: Dave DeSario

Film Website: http://www.tempfilm.com/film2/
Director’s Website: DavidMGarcia.com
Producer’s Organization: TemporaryEmployees.org

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Posted by Labor Film Database on November 19, 2014 in Documentary, Retail, Self-Employed/Freelance, Service Workers, Working Class

Palikari: Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre (2014)

19 Nov

Directed and Edited by Nickos Ventouras
Original Score by Manos Ventouras
Associate Producer Menelaos Tzafalias
Louis Tikas song by Frank Manning (Best Folk Song, 2002).
website: http://www.palikari.org/

Summary
Palikari – Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre deals with labor relations in early 20th century America, as told through the story of Greek migrant and trade union activist Louis Tikas. 2014 marks the centenary of his brutal killing during what acclaimed historian Howard Zinn called the “culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history”. Director Nikos Ventouras and producer Lamprini Thoma chart the story of the great 1913-1914 coalminers’ strike and Louis Tikas’s murder, as it survives in oral and family traditions, as well as in official history. They interview historians and artists, some of them direct descendants of those striking miners. Labor movement emblem Mother Jones and industrialist John D. Rockefeller, Jr. also make cameo appearances in this palimpsest of memory, struggle and deliverance. Tikas’s story can but reverberate in our time, in view of what is happening with the rights of workers and immigrants around the world.

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Posted by Labor Film Database on November 19, 2014 in Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Labor History, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

Shadows of Liberty

17 Jul

93 min – Documentary – 8 August 2013 (Germany)
Director: Jean-Philippe Tremblay

Film website

In this documentary, filmmaker Jean-Philippe Tremblay takes a journey through the darker corridors of the US media. Global conglomerates have called the shots for decades, and their overwhelming influence has distorted news journalism and compromised its values. In highly revealing stories, renowned journalists, activists, and academics give insider accounts of a broken media system. Controversial news reports are suppressed, people are censored for speaking out, and lives are shattered as the arena for public expression is turned into a private profit zone. Tracing the story of media manipulation through the years, Shadows of Liberty poses a crucial question: why have we let a handful of powerful corporations write the news?

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Posted by Labor Film Database on July 17, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Big Business/Corporations, Documentary, Entertainment Industry

The Forgotten Space

17 Jul

112 mins; 2010
By Allan Sekula and Noël Burch
Film website

Investigates global maritime trade, highlighting displaced farmers and villagers in Holland, underpaid truck drivers in Los Angeles and Filipino maids in China. Sekula and Burch offer a sobering portrait of workers’ conditions, the inhuman scale of sea trade and the secret lives of port cities.

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Posted by Labor Film Database on July 17, 2014 in Documentary, Environment, Global Economy, Safety & Health, Technology, Transportation

Tags: Allan Sekula, global maritime trade, Noël Burch Film website

Memory of Past Struggles (Memoria Para Reincidentes)

17 Jul

107min. Argentina. Made by Violeta Bruck, Gabi Jaime and Javier Gabino
Film website

Unions and labor militancy in the 70s: Shows how Argentinian workers were organizing independently of the Peronist labor movement as early as 1969, including in the powerful 1975 General Strike. It also shows the role not only of the bosses but also the government, which helped usher in mass repression eventually leading to a military dictatorship in 1976.

With footage from the period and reminisces of the past struggles, the film shows the strengths and weaknesses of the labor movement. Thousands of workers and labor activists were kidnapped and murdered as part of this US supported military coup in 1976.

In 2013, Argentina was again been rocked by mass general strikes against the economic assault on working people, and this documentary provides an up-close view of the militant trade unionists who are part of the working class history of Argentina.

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Posted by Labor Film Database on July 17, 2014 in Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Labor History, Organizing, Politics, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Working Class

The Conditions of the Working Class In England

17 Jul

2012 British; 82 min.
Directed by Mike Wayne and Deirdre O’Neill

This film is inspired by Engels’ book written in 1844, The Condition of the Working Class in England. How much has really changed since then?

In 2012 a group of working class people from Manchester and Salford come together to create a theatrical show from scratch based on their own experiences and Engels’ book. They have eight weeks before their first performance. The Condition of the Working Class follows them from the first rehearsal to the first night performance and situates their struggle to get the show on stage in the context of the daily struggles of ordinary people facing economic crisis and austerity politics. The people who came together to do the show turned from a group of strangers, many of whom had never acted before, into The Ragged Collective, in little more than two months.

This film, full of political passion and anger, is a wonderful testament to the creativity, determination and camaraderie of working people that blows the media stereotypes of the working class out of the water.

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Posted by Labor Film Database on July 17, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Class, Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Labor History, Working Class

Jai Bhim Comrade: Blast From The Caste

17 Jul

Director – Anand Patwardhan (180 min) 2012

The recent election in India of a rightwing reactionary government and the collapse of the Congress Party again exposes the basic contradictions within India. The lowest caste, the Dalit or “untouchables,” for thousands of years, was denied education and treated as bonded labour. By 1923 Bhimrao Ambedkar broke the taboo, won doctorates abroad and fought for the emancipation of his people. He helped draft India’s Constitution and led his followers to discard Hinduism for Buddhism. His legend still spreads through poetry and song.

In 1997, a Dalit protest erupted in a Mumbai slum after a statue of B.R. Ambedkar was desecrated. Ambedkar (1891-1956) was a reformist who agitated to end the caste system, helped Gandhi write the Indian constitution and amassed a large following among the Dalit. At the protest, 10 unarmed people were killed when police opened fire. Singer, poet and activist Vilas Ghogre later committed suicide to protest the killings.

Shot over 14 years, this three hour film is jam-packed with information. The film covers the biographies of both Ghogre and Ambedkar as well as Indian politics and the day-to-day lives of the Dalit who are still struggling for freedom and justice in India.