Genre | THE LABOR FILM DATABASE

The Boss of it All (2006)

99m; Denmark

Director: Lars von Trier

Cast: Jens Albinus, Peter Gantzler and Friðrik Þór Friðriksson

Synopsis: “It’s a comedy and harmless,” is how Von Trier introduces this film, described by one reviewer as “ ‘The Office’ Viewed Through the Looking Glass.” In this dark satire, filmed entirely in an office, an out-of-work actor, hired by the director of a Danish IT company to impersonate its non-existent CEO, bumbles through meetings with senior employees and negotiations with an Icelandic businessman who wants to buy the firm. The film’s off-kilter visual style (a computer randomly determined when to tilt, pan or zoom the camera) works in the film’s favor, uncannily echoing the nonsense and frustration of our everyday lives. (Rochester Labor Film Series 2010)

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Posted by Metro Council on May 7, 2012 in Comedy, Unemployment-Wages, White Collar

Precarious Work Affects Us All (2009)

26 Apr

4m; U.S.

Director: International Metalworkers’ Union

Synopsis: This short film describes the work of the International Metalworkers’ Federation and its global campaign with affiliated metal worker unions around the world against the rise of precarious work. This short video is available in seven other languages

Contact: Anita Gardner agardner@imfmetal.org

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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Global Economy, Organizing

The Price of Sugar (2006)

26 Apr

90m; U.S.

Director: Bill Haney

Synopsis (IMDB): On the Caribbean island of the Dominican Republic, tourists flock to pristine beaches, with little knowledge that a few miles away thousands of dispossessed Haitians are under armed guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane, most of which ends up in US kitchens. Cutting cane by machete, they work 14 hour days, 7 days a week, frequently without access to decent housing, electricity, clean water, education, healthcare or adequate nutrition. The Price of Sugar follows a charismatic Spanish priest, Father Christopher Hartley, as he organizes some of this hemisphere’s poorest people, challenging the powerful interests profiting from their work. This film raises key questions about where the products we consume originate, at what human cost they are produced and ultimately, where our responsibility lies.

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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Class, Documentary, Farm & Food, Global Economy, Organizing

The Price of Coal (1977)

26 Apr

U.K.

Director: Ken Loach

Synopsis (Wikipedia): A two-part television production. The first is comic, and deals with the preparations for an official visit by Prince Charles. The humour revolves around the expensive and ludicrous preparations that are required when there is an official visit from a member of the Royal Family. The workers recognise this and cannot take it seriously. Management recognises it but has to play the game. Special toilets must be constructed “just in case” and then destroyed after the visit. A worker is instructed to paint a brick holding up a window. On the eve of the visit the slogan “Scargill rules OK” is painted on a wall. The manager comments “When I find out who did that I’ll string him up by his knackers”. It is a surreal situation for many of the miners who obviously bear no love for Royalty.

The second deals with a pit accident where some men are killed, and attempts to rescue some trapped men. It is loosely based on the Lofthouse Colliery disaster in 1973.

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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Drama

Tags: Mining

Producing Just Garments (2007)

26 Apr

25m; U.S.

Director: Media Intransigence

Synopsis: Garment workers take over factory and run it through workers’ collective

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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Global Economy, Textile Industry

Professional Revolutionary: The Life of Saul Wellman (2004)

26 Apr

65m; U.S.

Director: Judith Montell & Ronald Aronson

Synopsis (Wikipedia): Under-educated, Wellman fought in the army, worked in a car factory for Ford and was employed at a printing company; Wellman fought against Fascism in both the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Wellman returned home at the start of the Cold War, to help organize and lead the Communist Party in America. Then when the 60s came along, Wellman latched onto the civil rights movement. The documentary deals with wheelchair-using Wellman, during the last years of his life, at an Iraq war protest. Throughout his life, Wellman was an organizer and passionate speaker.

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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Documentary, Labor History, Organizing, Politics, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Unemployment-Wages, War, Working Class

Profit & Nothing But! Or Impolite Thoughts on the Class Struggle (2001)

26 Apr

52m

Diector: Raoul Peck

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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Class, Documentary

Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (2007)

26 Apr

58m; U.S.

Director: John Gianvito

Synopsis: Using Howard Zinn’s A People¹s History of the United States as a basis, filmmaker Gianvito crafts an elegant and elegiac chronicle of the progressive movement in America by visiting cemeteries, plaques, and monuments. Told without narration, Gianvito pays homage to those who fought for their beliefs and who have been forgotten by popular history.

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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Documentary, Labor History

The Progressives (1969)

26 Apr

20m; U.S.

Director: McGraw-Hill Book Company

Synopsis: Traces the progressive movement from its beginning in 1890 through WWI. Notes that it was a revolt of the American conscience in the cities and on the state and federal levels corruption, poverty, prejudice and other social evils.

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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Documentary, Labor History