3:12; U.S.
Director: Jason Brown
Synopsis: Documentary about John Sayles’s “Matewan.” Features interviews with John Sayles, Chris Cooper, David Straithairn, and others.
Contact: http://www.themthatwork.com/TTW/Home.html
Category Archives: Genre
There Oughta Be A Law: NoJobIsWorthThis.com (2009)
Director: Beverly Peterson
Synopsis: Documentary about the devastating impact of abusive bosses. And their victims’ national struggle to pass anti-harassment laws.
Contact: http://nojobisworththis.com/about Beverly Peterson 347-229-6815 peterson.beverly@gmail.com
These Hands (1992)
DVD
45 minutes, 1992, Tanzania, Africa
Director: Flora M’mbugu-Schelling
in Kimakonde and Swahili with English subtitles
http://newsreel.org/video/THESE-HANDS
Who would have suspected that a 45 minute documentary about women crushing rocks, without narration or plot, would offer one of the most unforgettable and rewarding experiences of recent African cinema? Flora M’mbugu-Schelling’s quiet tribute to women at the very bottom of the international economic order ultimately deepens into a mediation on human labor itself. These Hands will stimulate viewers to rethink documentary and to question their own role as consumers in a global economy.
They Don’t Wear Black Tie (Eles Não Usam Black-Tie) [1981]
122m; Brazil
Director: Leon Hirszman
Cast: Gianfrancesco Guarnieri, Fernanda Montenegro and Carlos Alberto Riccelli
Synopsis (NYT): At the beginning of the Brazilian film “They Don’t Wear Black Tie,” a middle-class boy and girl are making plans to live happily ever after. Maria (Bete Mendes) is pregnant by the handsome young Tiao (Carlos Alberto Ricelli), and that helps accelerate their plan to rush into marriage. Everything looks rosy. “They Don’t Wear Black Tie” is an extremely successful politically aware drama about how the bloom falls off the rose . . . The film chronicles the process by which Maria realizes that Tiao is not the man she thought he was. Her understanding of Tiao’s weakness is heightened by the political activity surrounding a local strike, at the factory where Tiao, his father and Maria are all employed. When the labor trouble begins, Tiao manfully wanrs Maria that she’d better stay home, exhibiting just the hind of stubborn sexism this courageous heroine refuses to tolerate. Later on, he violates the most basic tenets of his upbringing by becoming a scab. And Maria declares that her child will be bery, very proud of his grandfather, even if he never has a kind thought about his father at all.
“They Don’t Wear Black Tie” is an outstandingly good film in this year’s New Directors/New Films lineup.
They Drive by Night (1940)
93m; U.S.
Director: Raoul Walsh
Cast: George Raft, Humphrey Bogart and Ann Sheridan
Synopsis (IMDB): Brothers Paul and Joe Fabrini run a trucking business in California mainly shipping fruit from farms to the markets in Los Angeles. They struggle to make ends meet in the face of corrupt businessmen and intense competition. They are forced into driving long hours and one night pick-up waitress Cassie Hartley who’s just quit her job at a truck stop. The three of them witness the death of a mutual acquaintance when he falls asleep at the wheel. This has a profound effect on Paul and Joe and they become determined to find a way to make the business pay so they can quit.
They Live (1988)
93m; U.S.
Director: John Carpenter
Cast: Roddy Piper, Keith David and Meg Foster
Synopsis (IMDB): Nada, a down-on-his-luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like “Stay Asleep”, “No Imagination”, “Submit to Authority”. Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued.
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
129m; U.S.
Director: Sydney Pollack
Cast: Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin and Susannah York
Synopsis: Gloria is a young woman of the Depression. She has aged beyond her years and feels her life is hopeless, having been cheated and betrayed many times in her past. While recovering from a suicide attempt, she gets the idea from a movie magazine to head for Hollywood to make it as an actress. Robert is a desperate Hollywood citizen trying to become a director, never doubting that he’ll make it. Robert and Gloria meet and decide to enter a dance marathon, one of the crazes of the thirties. The grueling dancing takes its toll on Gloria’s already weakened spirit, and she tells Robert that she’d be better off dead, that her life is hopeless – all the while acting cruelly and bitterly, alienating those around her, trying to convince him to shoot her and put her out of her misery. After all, they shoot horses, don’t they?
This Is Just The Start (2009)
4m; U.K.
Director: Gary Williams
Synopsis: On 10th October 2009, UNISON organizers met with Chartwell’s (Compass Group plc) Sheffield City school catering staff with the aim of starting to get organized and win their proper pay and conditions.
Contact: G.Williams@unison.co.uk
They Were Not Silent: The Jewish Labor Movement and the Holocaust (1998)
30m; U.S.
Director: Roland Millman
Synopsis (Wikipedia): They Were Not Silent is a documentary about the Jewish Labor Committee’s anti-Nazi movement in America before, during and after World War II. The film features rare archival footage and photographs along with interviews with labor veterans, Holocaust survivors and scholars. It explores how international Jewry worked to help Jews and non-Jews in Germany, Poland, and elsewhere in Europe.
Contact: Gail Malmgreen 212-998-2636 gail.malmgreen@nyu.edu
Thirst (2004)
62m; U.S.
Director: Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman
Synopsis: Community resistance to water privatization, union-community coalitions, public employees, need for public investment in infrastructure.
Contact: Alan Snitow & Deborah Kaufman Snitow-Kaufman Productions 2600 Tenth Street #603 Berkeley, CA 94710 510 841-1068 amsnitow@igc.org http://www.snitow-kaufman.org
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