2013
Documentary
Director: Vicki Vasilopoulos
96 Minutes
Men of the Cloth is an inspiring portrait of Nino Corvato, Checchino Fonticoli and Joe Centofanti, three Italian master tailors who confront the decline of the apprentice system as they navigate their challenging roles in the twilight of their career. The film unravels the mystery of their artistry and reveals how their passionate devotion to their Old World craft is akin to a religion.
–Written by Vicki Vasilopoulos
2014
Documentary
Directors: Patrick Moreau, Grant Peelle
Writers: Margaret Apple, Marshall Davis Jones
Only a 9-year-old would dream a lemonade stand could change the world. After seeing a photo of two enslaved boys in Nepal, Vivienne Harr is moved to help in the only way she knows how: by setting up her lemonade stand. With the goal of freeing 500 children from slavery, she sets up her stand every day, rain or shine. In telling Vivienne’s story, #standwithme examines the realities of modern-day slavery, the role we play in it as consumers, and the importance of knowing the story behind what we buy.
2014
102 min
Biography
Director: Diego Luna
Writers: Keir Pearson (screenplay), Timothy J. Sexton
Stars: Michael Peña, America Ferrera, Rosario Dawson
The film follows Chávez’s efforts to organize 50,000 farm workers in California, some of whom were braceros—temporary workers from Mexico permitted to live and work in the United States in agriculture, and required to return to Mexico if they stopped working. Working conditions are very poor for the braceros, who also suffer from racism and brutality at the hands of the employers and local Californians. To help the workers, César Chávez (Michael Peña) forms a labor union known as the United Farm Workers (UFW). Chávez’s efforts are opposed, sometimes violently, by the owners of the large industrial farms where the braceros work. The film touches on several major nonviolent campaigns by the UFW: the Delano grape strike, the Salad Bowl strike, and the 1975 Modesto march.
2012
Directed by Gabriela Pichler
Sweden
104 mins
Nermina Lukac’s electrifying performance as Raša is the heart of director Gabriela Pichler’s feature debut. A Montenegrin-born young woman living in rural Sweden, Raša is laid off from her job at a food-packing plant. Her ensuing job search pulls us through the maze of limited prospects and frustrating bureaucracy facing the country’s working immigrant population. Affable, resilient, street smart and soft-hearted, Raša’s natural magnetism draws us in completely. We feel every ounce of her disappointment, fear and elation as she soldiers on, looking for work. An Audience Award winner at the Venice Film Festival, EAT SLEEP DIE’s assured naturalism and political conviction single out Pichler as a bold, exciting new cinematic voice. Her film is a positive rallying cry for low-wage workers who dream of a life that won’t merely add up to the three verbs that form the film’s title.
– Mike Dougherty, American Film Institute
2014
101m
China
Directed by Zhang Wei
With: Yao Anlian, Tang Yan, Zhao Ju, Huang Jingyi, Gao Xueqin, Yun Mengjie; Chen Liang. (Mandarin dialogue)
The title figure in “Factory Boss” is one who normally garners little sympathy, particularly in the West, where cheap Chinese labor has undercut local production. Yet helmer Zhang Wei and thesp Yao Anlian create a complex character virtually impossible not to identify with, at least partially: Caught between a rock and a hard place — the paper-thin profit margins offered by Western conglomerates vs. rising worker demands at home — he inevitably winds up treating everyone unfairly, including himself. For growing ranks of China watchers, “Factory Boss” offers an engrossing expose of the built-in impasses of global economics from an unexplored perspective.
Ronnie Scheib, Variety
http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/film-review-factory-boss-1201300789/
2013
France (in English)
100m
Directors: Gabriella Kessler, Jean-Loïc Portron
Writer: Jean-Loïc Portron
Braddock, Pennsylvania has been the home to key events that have greatly shaped American history. Today, it is struggling to reinvent itself and stay relevant.
In its own way, through immigration, industrialization, the rise of trade unionism and its destiny in question, Braddock tells a story of America: a rebellious, combatant America inhabited by men and women who refuse to accept the violence inflicted upon them. “Resist much, obey little,” Walt Whitman urged his fellow citizens; and indeed his words could be the motto of this film. The Monongahela Valley has been heavily stricken by the steel crisis and the shutdowns of the mills in the 80’s. It is probably easier to find more enchanting places in the world, but if many don’t imagine leaving the valley, it is because they know that this tiny parcel of land bears the traces, buried in its soil and in their memories, of events that helped build the history of their nation. This same awareness leads them to believe that such a special place might one day help map out a future for the United States. http://program33.com/braddock-america/
10/30/2014 NYT review: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/movies/braddock-america-the-story-of-a-rust-belt-struggle.html?_r=0
Directed by Tom Lietz
1 hr, 37m
website: http://www.secondshiftfilm.com/
When GM prepared to pull out of Lansing, a team of government, business, labor and other community leaders convinced the auto giant to invest over a billion dollars instead. This documentary tells the story of successful regional collaboration to create the “second shift” for a community in crisis.
2014
Directed by Jesse Moss
Runtime: 1 hr, 30m
In the tiny town of Williston, North Dakota, tens of thousands of unemployed hopefuls show up with dreams of honest work and a big paycheck under the lure of the oil boom. However, busloads of newcomers chasing a broken American Dream step into the stark reality of slim work prospects and nowhere to sleep. The town lacks the infrastructure to house the overflow of migrants, even for those who do find gainful employment.
Over at Concordia Lutheran Church, Pastor Jay Reinke is driven to deliver the migrants some dignity. Night after night, he converts his church into a makeshift dorm and counseling center, opening the church’s doors to allow the “Overnighters” (as he calls them) to stay for a night, a week or longer. They sleep on the floor, in the pews and in their cars in the church parking lot. Many who take shelter with Reinke are living on society’s fringes and with checkered pasts, and their presence starts affecting the dynamics of the small community. The congregants begin slinging criticism and the City Council threatens to shut the controversial Overnighters program down, forcing the pastor to make a decision which leads to profound consequences that he never imagined.
A modern-day Grapes of Wrath, award-winning documentary The Overnighters engages and dramatizes a set of universal societal and economic themes: the promise and limits of re-invention, redemption and compassion, as well as the tension between the moral imperative to “love thy neighbor” and the resistance that one small community feels when confronted by a surging river of desperate, job-seeking strangers.
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