Contact: http://www.udel.edu/global/documentary/leftbehind/Site/Home.html
Category Archives: Genre
Turn Left at the End of the World (2004)
110m; France
Director: Avi Nesher
Cast: Neta Garty, Liraz Charhi and Aure Atika
Synopsis (IMDB): As a family from India moves in to a desert neighborhood in Southern Israel in the 1960’s, the family’s eldest, beautiful daughter discovers friendship and romance with the lovely local French girl. The film also explores the hardships and surprises that come with the integration of multiple families from different ethnic backgrounds (from the diaspora) and their struggle with immigration and prejudice
Legacy of Shame: Migrant Labor, An American Institution
48m; U.S.
Synopsis: In this program—a follow-up to the alarming 1960 broadcast Harvest of Shame, which first awakened the nation to the plight of migrant workers—correspondents Dan Rather and Randall Pinkston document the ongoing exploitation of America’s invisible laborers while highlighting efforts being made to protect them. Topics of investigation include pesticide risks, the uneven enforcement of employment and immigration regulations, and peonage, as well as the efforts of rural legal services and progressive growers to advocate for this silent minority and provide equitable employment opportunities.
Contact: http://ffh.films.com/id/4522/Legacy_of_Shame_Migrant_Labor_an_American_Institution.htm
Les destinées (2000)
180m; France
Director: Olivier Assayas
Cast: Emmanuelle Béart, Charles Berling and Isabelle Huppert
Synopsis (IMDB): Responsibility versus happiness. Jean Barnery is a young Protestant cleric in Barbazac in 1900 when he divorces his severe wife after falling in love with Pauline, the independent-minded niece of an upper-crust parishioner. Jean’s also an heir to a high-end porcelain factory in Limoges. He gives his fortune to his wife to assuage his guilt over the divorce. He pursues Pauline; they marry and live idyllically in Switzerland. Then, duty calls: his family asks him to come to Limoges to run the business. He accepts, ignoring Pauline’s wishes. His new responsibilities, as well as his fighting in the Great War, change him and his relationship with Pauline
Lessons From The Night (2008)
9m; Australia
Director: Adrian Francis
Synopsis: When the 9-to-5 shift ends and workers head home, Maia, an office cleaner, begins her workday. Adrian Francis accompanies her on her rounds as she ruminates on the solitary nature of her job, insisting that it is not a lonely one: She does not live with people themselves, but with the objects they have left behind.
Let’s Make MONEY (2008)
110m; Austria
Director: Erwin Wagenhofer
Synopsis: “Follow the money” is a mantra in both crime and business, perhaps coincidentally and perhaps not. For director Erwin Wagenhofer, whose 2005 documentary sensation WE FEED THE WORLD traced the global path of food from raw materiel to table, it was perhaps inevitable that his follow-up would be the visual tone poem to commerce, LET’S MAKE MONEY. From Indian slums to Hong Kong boardrooms, the Spanish real estate bubble to the World Bank, Wagenhofer is there to juxtapose captains of industry-“there’s a famous saying that the best time to buy is when there’s blood on the streets,” says one-with those actual streets, where laborers work in primitive conditions and billboards offer goods and services they can’t possibly afford.
Liam (2001)
90m; U.K.
Director: Stephen Frears
Cast: Anthony Borrows, Ian Hart and Claire Hackett
Synopsis: Film follows a family and the effects of the Great Depression on the working class in 1930’s Liverpool.
Life in Tuzla Shipyards, The/ Tuzla Tersaneleri’nde Hayat (2008)
41m; Turkey
Director: Petra Holzer, Selçuk Erzurumlu, Ethem Özgüven Kurgu
Synopsis: Tuzla graveyard overlooks massive shipbuilding area where great profits are made and workers die.
Contact: http://4857-documentary.blogspot.com/ petramh@gmail.com
Lightning Over Braddock: A Rustbowl Fantasy (1988)
80m; U.S.
Director: Tony Buba
Synopsis: Tony Buba, a film maker from Braddock, Pennsylvania, tells the story of his hometown’s decline (along with the rest of the steel mill towns along the Monongahela River) while he dreams of making higher budget films. The picture documents, in a lighthearted way, the community anxiety and activism that accompanied the failure of the steel industry around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Sweet Sal the street hustler tries to make it big in Tony’s movies
Like A Bird In A Cage: Women in Desa Resistance (2009)
30m; Turkey
Director: Güliz Sağlam, Feryal Saygılıgil
Synopsis: Documentary about the resistance of Emine Arslan, fired from the Desa Sefaköy factory in Istanbul, and the female workers who were fired from the Düzce factory. All the women who were fired are union members. The film reveals the working conditions of women, the experience they gain while organizing, the advantages of resistance, their relationship with the union, their hopes and expectations and the Istanbul Women’s Platform, which is in solidarity with them throughout the strike.
Contact: Güliz Saglam Documentary maker tel:0090 532 583 74 55 gulizsaglam@hotmail.com
THE LABOR FILM DATABASE 