Education | THE LABOR FILM DATABASE

Austerity Fight (2017)

The austerity policies of the Tories have targeted young and old. The NHS is chronically under funded and is being privatised. Students are leaving college with huge debts. Children, pensioners and the disabled are living in poverty and millions live precarious lives on ‘zero hour contracts’. Austerity Fight challenges the notion that we have to live in a world where public services are cut, worker’s rights removed and poverty is a daily reality for millions. Austerity Fight champions equality, practical alternatives to Austerity and a vision of a world based on co-operation rather than the greed of a global super elite.

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Posted by Labor Film Database on December 22, 2018 in Documentary, Education, Education, Health care, Organizing

Backpack Full of Cash

07 Mar

a film that explores the growing privatization of public schools and the resulting impact on America’s most vulnerable children.

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Posted by Labor Film Database on March 7, 2018 in Children, Cities-Urban, Documentary, Education

The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For “Superman”(2011)

16 Feb

Directed by: Julie Cavanagh, Darren Marelli, Norm Scott, Mollie Bruhn, and Lisa Donlan
Running Time: 69 min
Starring: N/A

Website: https://theinconvenienttruthbehindwaitingforsuperman.com/

Synopsis: A group of New York City public school teachers and parents from the Grassroots Education Movement wrote and produced this documentary in response to Davis Guggenheim’s highly misleading film, Waiting for “Superman.” Guggenheim’s film would have audiences believe that free-market competition, standardized tests, destroying teacher unions, and above all, the proliferation of charter schools are just what this country needs to create great schools.

The film, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman highlights the real life experiences of public school parents and educators to show how these so-called reforms are actually hurting education. The film talks about the kinds of real reform–inside schools and in society as a whole–that we urgently need to genuinely transform education in this country.

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Posted by siddawson on February 16, 2017 in Documentary, Education

Elf (2015)

11 Nov

Filmmaker: Ting-Ging YU

Taiwan | 2015 | Fiction | 18 minutes

Yen is an albino. She struggled through study and became a teacher. Hao-hao wrote to Yen and told her that he finally got a job. Ah-chih suffers from physical handicaps and creates great paintings. The director compares those who suffer from physical handicaps but being hard-working like angels sent by God.

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Posted by Labor Film Database on November 11, 2015 in Discrimination: Racism, Sexism, etc, Documentary, Education, Women

I Can Quit Whenever I Want

24 Jan

2014
Comedy
Italy
Director: Sydney Sibilia
Writers: Valerio Attanasio, Andrea Garello, Sydney Sibilia
100 Minutes

A university researcher is fired because of the cuts to the university. To earn a living, he decides to produce drugs recruiting his former colleagues, who despite their skills are living at the margins of society.
–IMDb

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Posted by jckozlowski on January 24, 2015 in Arts/Culture, Class, Comedy, Consumerism, Education, Occupation/Type of Work, Self-Employed/Freelance, Themes, White Collar, Working Class

Detachment

24 Jan

2011
Drama
Director: Tony Kaye
Writer: Carl Lund

A strong cast and good acting punctuate this drama about well-worn themes in contemporary cinema and educational discourse—failed public schools and the teachers allegedly indifferent to the pervasive, seemingly intractable social problems in them. Adrien Brody plays a substitute teacher who, in his one-month stint in a long-suffering public school, encounters teachers barely hanging on to their jobs and vocational motivation, and teenage students struggling with identity problems, abuse, and serious adult dilemmas such as prostitution. Hard-hitting indictment of not just the problems afflicting US public education but also some of the remedies advanced to solve them.

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Posted by jckozlowski on January 24, 2015 in Available Online, Children, Cities-Urban, Class, Drama, Education, Labor History, Netflix Watch Instantly, Occupation/Type of Work, Themes, White Collar, Working Class

Schoolidarity

29 Jun

A sharply aimed film about Wisconsin and Chicago teachers fighting back against the onslaught of anti-union governors and big city mayors willing to sell out public education to the burgeoning power of the for profit charter school movement – which just happens to be mostly union-free.Through the eyes of public school teachers fighting for the benefit of all their students, Schoolidarity tells the interwoven story of the two most significant American workers’ rights struggles of recent years: the weeks-long 2011 mass occupation of the Wisconsin capitol, and the Chicago teachers strike of 2012. Schoolidarity provides a history of the issues surrounding the privatization of urban public schools in the US. By documenting the ascent of the activist teacher caucus CORE, Chicago’s public schools crisis is analyzed through the lens of the assault on public sector unions, where defeats are just as important to study as victories in order to insure education justice for all.

Directed by: Andrew Friend

http://vimeopro.com/insurgentproductions/andrew-friend/video/51703399

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Posted by andrew765 on June 29, 2014 in Children, Cities-Urban, Documentary, Education

Film title needed here

27 Jun

What are unions for? Haitian union leaders explain the role of unions and why civil society is necessary for a country to develop itself. The documentary shows unions in action, in different sectors of society like the peasantry, schools, hospitals, transportation, municipal services, garment factories in Haiti’s free zones. Social protection, public services and the necessity of the rule of law are also discussed. Best short documentary in the ‘Regards d’ici’ section at Vues d’Afrique, the most important French language film festival for African and Creole films outside of Africa.

Directed by: Andre Vanasse http://www.vuesdafrique.com

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Posted by andrew765 on June 27, 2014 in Cities-Urban, Documentary, Education, Global Economy, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo)

Tags: Africa, organize, union

Truth Through A Lens

23 Jun

A stunning feature length debut by an SVA Soc Doc MFA graduate, Justin Thomas, who follows the evolution of Brooklyn street kid, subway train tagger and local community organizing legend, Dennis Flores. Dennis had the courage to pick up a camera, when he saw his neighbors being physically abused for simple demanding decent housing and better treatment by the local police. Of course Dennis himself quickly becomes the target of those for whom telling the truth is not necessarily considered part of the daily job.

https://www.facebook.com/truthlens2014

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Posted by andrew765 on June 23, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Cities-Urban, Communications, Documentary, Education

Tags: Film, Journalism, NYC, workers

Maestra (2011)

15 Jan

Explores the experience of eight women who, as young girls, taught on the Cuban Literacy Campaign of 1961.The film begins in 1961, when Cuba announced that they would eradicate illiteracy in one year. Over 250,000 citizens volunteered. Interviews, recorded testimonials, and powerful archival footage tell this story. The teachers lived with the families they taught, working alongside them in the fields during the day & teaching classes (often by lantern) at night. In the midst of the campaign, the Bay of Pigs was invaded, and in spite of the dangers and difficulties, their eyes sparkle as they share their stories and each of them insists this was the most important thing they had ever done.

Directed by: Catherine Murphy
catherine@theliteracyproject.org

http://www.maestrathefilm.org/

http://www.wmm.com