100m; U.S.
Director: James Klein and Julia Reichert
Synopsis: Documentary about the American Communist Party from the 1930s through the 50s taken from interviews with the “regular folks” who were members.
Category Archives: Genre
Severance
96m
Director: Christopher Smith
Cast: Danny Dyer, Laura Harris and Tim McInnerny
Synopsis (IMDB): A team-building weekend in the mountains of Eastern Europe goes horribly wrong for the sales division of the multi-national weapons company Palisade Defence when they become the victims of a group of crazed killers who will stop at nothing to see them dead.
The Shaft (Dixia de tiankong) [2008]
98m; China
Director: Chi Zhang
Cast: Deyuan Luo, Xuan Huang and Luoqian Zheng
Synopsis (IMDB): A film about the lives of Chinese miners is not likely to attract mainstream viewers, but I suspect that this is the closest glimpse into contemporary China we are likely to get. And touchingly universal. Visually, it is a series of marvelously-framed photographs and brief snatches of dialog, to which the viewer must gradually develop a narrative line. In the background — the effects of the one-child policy, which puts a premium on marriageable females, who must sell themselves to the highest bidder; then the lure and inaccessibility of the big city (Beijing); the incapability of small-town gossip as well as the town’s only employer — the coal mines
The Shipbuilders
90m; U.K.
Director: John Baxter
Cast: Clive Brook, Morland Graham and Nell Ballantyne
Synopsis: Clydeside shipbuilder and a loyal riveter fight to keep Britain a seapower
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
99m; U.S.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart and Frank Morgan
Synopsis (IMDB): In Budapest, Hungary, the Matuschek and Company store is owned by Mr. Hugo Matuschek and the bachelor Alfred Kralik is his best and most experienced salesman. When Klara Novak seeks a job position of saleswoman in the store, Matuschek hires her but Kralik and she do not tolerate each other. Meanwhile the lonely and dedicated Kralik has an unknown pen pal that he intends to propose very soon; however, he is fired without explanation by Matuschek in the night that he is going to meet his secret love. He goes to the bar where they have scheduled their meeting with his colleague Pirovitch and he surprisingly finds that Klara is his correspondent; however, ashamed with the unemployment, he does not disclose his identity to her. When Matuschek discovers that he had misjudged Kralik and committed a mistake, he hires him again for the position of manager. But Klara is still fascinated with her future fiancé and does not pay much attention to Kralik.
Shots on the Docks (2003)
28m; U.S.
Synopsis: The stepped up repression of anti-war demonstrators and trade unionists took a new turn in the U.S. on April 7, 2003, when Oakland, California police attacked a peaceful picket on the docks. The Labor Video Project was there when Oakland police fired over a hundred shots of rubber bullets and wooden projectiles as well as concussion grenades to attack the anti-war protest. This video interviews the workers on the picket line as well as ILWU longshoremen who were standing by and were also targeted by the police and the company. It goes behind the pictures to expose the reasons that trade unionists joined the line and the reaction of ILWU Local 10 members to the attacks and arrests of their business agent. There is also an international campaign to defend ILWU BA Jack Heyman and the Oakland 25 who face criminal charges for the April 7 incident. – http://www.reelwork.org/archive/2004/films2004.htm
Contact: “Shots on the Docks” is also being streamed at: http://www.brightpathvideo.com/Labor_Video.htm purchase info: lvpsf@igc.org Photo credit: Labor Video Project Photo caption: worker holds wood bullet fired by police http://www.laborbeat.org phone: 312-226-3330 mail@laborbeat.org
Shout Youngstown
Synopsis: Documentary on closings of steel plants in Youngstown, OH and the effects on the community.
Contact: View here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jk4ARquynE
Shutdown (1980)
26m; U.S.
Director: Laura Sky
Synopsis: This film documents the closing down of an American-owned branch plant, with all the personal trauma that such a decision causes the workers. The employees discuss the dilemma of working in an economy dominated by foreign ownership and the lack of government action to protect jobs in American-owned branch plants.
Contact: http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=13252
Sicko (2007)
123m; U.S.
Director: Michael Moore
Cast: Michael Moore, Tucker Albrizzi and Tony Benn
Synopsis (IMDB): Documentary look at health care in the United States as provided by profit-oriented health maintenance organizations (HMOs) compared to free, universal care in Canada, the U.K., and France. Moore contrasts U.S. media reports on Canadian care with the experiences of Canadians in hospitals and clinics there. He interviews patients and doctors in the U.K. about cost, quality, and salaries. He examines why Nixon promoted HMOs in 1971, and why the Clintons’ reform effort failed in the 1990s. He talks to U.S. ex-pats in Paris about French services, and he takes three 9/11 clean-up volunteers, who developed respiratory problems, to Cuba for care. He asks of Americans, “Who are we?”
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