A collection of Canadian archival films, this is a website for anyone with an interest in history. For educators, these are innovative, accessible sources of history and tools for teaching. These century-old films cover a wide range of subjects and were highly popular in the era they were made. Both documentaries and narrative films are featured on this site. The former provides details about work and workplaces or important societal changes. Narrative films feature moral lessons that tell us much about attitudes and social values.
Sample titles:
Old Logging Mills 1930 (8:34)
Miners in the Making 1922 (9:49)
Life in a Mining Camp 1921 (3:35)
Read more: Canada’s Early Industrial Films are Useful to Labor and Social Historians
Category Archives: Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing
THE MOVING PAST
MADE IN EU
2025; 1h 42m
A factory worker in rural Bulgaria becomes her town’s first Covid case, unleashing a wave of blame and social ostracism. As the virus spreads, she faces mounting persecution from employers, coworkers, family, and neighbors.
Director: Stephan Komandarev
Writers: Stephan Komandarev; Simeon Ventsislavov
Stars: Ivan Barnev; Francesco Frattini; Gerasim Georgiev
Tommaso Blu (1986)
Local 1196: A Steelworkers Strike (2023)
59 minutes
“The old American dream just seems to be gone,” says Walt Hill, a longtime United Steelworkers Union member and the Contract Coordinator for Local 1196 in the decaying steel town of Brackenridge, Pennsylvania.
Local 1196 takes the viewer on the ground as days on strike turn to weeks, weeks turn to months, and union leaders realize they’re playing with a short stack, and against long odds.
Screen here and/or read more. Directed by Samuel George
Samuel.george@bfna.org
Foreign Parts (2010)
1h 21m
‘Foreign Parts’ portrays a hidden enclave of automobile shops and junk-yards fated for demolition in the shadow of a new baseball stadium in Queens. The film observes this vibrant community of immigrants – where wrecks, refuse, and recycling form a thriving commerce – as it struggles for daily survival and contests New York City’s development scheme.
Directors Verena Paravel & J.P. Sniadecki
The Great Strike 1917
Trailer
70 minutes.
Documentary about events which shaped Australian society and the labor movement for a century and beyond.
Synopsis
Thousands had stopped work, the government recruited volunteers to break the strike, allowing them to bear arms; unions were deregistered and union leaders charged with conspiracy. It was a time of violent emotions, state violence and individual acts of violence by and against strikers. A striker was shot and killed. A filmmaker had his film embargoed. It was Sydney, 1917.
The world was in the grip of “The Great War”. Rail and tram employees had been forced to work longer hours, with reduced wages and conditions. With the introduction of a new American ‘timecard’ system, tramway and railway workers in inner Sydney walked off the job in protest, triggering the strike.
The stoppage became the biggest industrial upheaval Australia has seen before or since. At its height the strike stopped coastal shipping, mining, stevedoring and transport, and involved tens of thousands of workers in Australia’s eastern states.
Despite being a crushing defeat at the time, it had lasting consequences for the Australian labor movement. It was 100 years ago, but personal stories rarely spoken about were to filter through, reflecting on both the trauma and the positive legacy of the event, which still strongly resonate today.
Mandy King
cavadini@tpg.com.au
M: 0410 633 503
Mine 9
2019 ‧ Drama ‧ 1h 23m
Miners struggle to survive after an explosion leaves them trapped two miles underground.
Release date: April 12, 2019 (USA)
Director: Eddie Mensore
Music composed by: Mauricio Yazigi
Producer: Eddie Mensore
Screenplay: Eddie Mensore
‘Mine 9’ Review: A Tense Disaster Drama, Undermined by Clichés
ABC da Greve (The “ABC” of the Strike)
A film by Brazilian director Leon Hirszman called ABC da Greve [The “ABC” of the Strike, a pun on São Paulo’s ABC region, where the strike began], about the Brazilian metalworkers strike of 1979.
Lula, The Rhetoric of the Image, Past and Present
They Don’t Wear Black Tie (1981) Eles Não Usam Black-Tie
2h | Drama | 18 April 1982 (USA)
Brazilian drama film directed by Leon Hirszman, based on Gianfrancesco Guarnieri’s play of the same name. Union leader’s son doesn’t want to engage in a strike, because his wife is pregnant, thus disregarding his father’s tradition of political activism. The film revolves around a working-class family in São Paulo in 1980. Otávio, a syndicalist leader, and Romana are the parents of Tião, whose girlfriend, Maria, becomes pregnant. Fearing to be fired and thus unable to support his now fiancée, Tião does not participate on a strike, which starts a series of family conflicts.
THE LABOR FILM DATABASE 