118m; Turkey
Director: Yilmaz Guney
Cast: Tarik Akan, Melike Demirag and Erol Demiröz
Synopsis (IMDB): Because of a local blood feud, a peasant family decides to sell its sheep – a most precious commodity – in far away Ankara. During their long train ride, bribes must be paid to petty officials, sheep are stolen or die in the packed, airless wagons, and the sick wife of one of the family’s sons becomes deathly ill.
108m; U.S.
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Matt Damon, Tony Hale and Patton Oswalt
Synopsis: “The Informant” is a true story that parallels a mixture of “A Beautiful Mind” and “The Insider” — where real life Ph.D.s had done something extraordinary. Based on Kurt Eichenwald’s 2000 book, “The Informant” is the tale of Mark Whitacre (played by Matt Damon), an Ivy League Ph.D. who was a rising star at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in the early 1990s. The bipolar hero wound up blowing the whistle on the company’s price fixing tactics and became the highest-ranked executive to ever turn whistleblower in US history. Whitacre secretly gathered hundreds of hours of video and audio tapes over several years to present to the FBI which became one of the largest price fixing cases in history. In the story — a dark comedy / thriller in director Steven Soderbergh’s hands — Whitacre’s good deed dovetails with his own major infractions and struggle with severe bipolar disorder.
95m; Germany
Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky
Contact: Simon Schwarz, Sophie Rois and Lars Rudolph
Synopsis (IMDB): Austria, a little farming valley. Beginning of the century. When one of the farmers is found murdered one day, his labourers know of nothing, but are relieved, as the tyranny has ended. Then, something new happens for the first time in history: The farm workers inherit the whole farm together, as the farmer himself was childless. Now, conflicts come up, as nobody is the boss and nobody has to obey
53m; U.S.
Director: Jenny Rohrer, Greg LeRoy
http://www.kartemquin.com/films/the-last-pullman-car
Synopsis: In 1864, George Pullman began selling his famous railroad sleeping cars which helped him build a vast industrial empire that was supposed to last forever. In 1981, however, Pullman workers found themselves in the midst of a fight not only for their jobs but the future of the American rail car industry. One hundred years of government, union and corporate policies are traced in this engaging story.
Contact: Available from New Day Films 22 Riverview Drive, Wayne, NJ 07470.
40m; U.S.
Director: Steve Bognar & Julia Reichert
Synopsis: An intimate look at the final days of a General Motors Plant in Moraine, Ohio, and the lives of the workers affected by its closing.
81m; Spain
Director: Jawad Rhalib
Synopsis: Where do the perfect fruits and vegetables of Europe come from? This film shows the deplorable conditions of the more than 80,000 Moroccan immigrants living and literally slaving under the plastic sheet that protect the crops, and above all, the laws of profit in southern Spain.
Contact: Clap d’Ort Films Sprl + 32 485 709 737 mo@clapdortfilms.be / http://elejidothelawofprofit.blogspot.com jrhalib@latchodrom.be
95m; Chile
Director: Sebastián Silva
Cast: Catalina Saavedra, Claudia Celedón and Alejandro Goic
Synopsis: Story of how a maid called Raquel, who has worked for over 20 years in one affluent Chilean household, rediscovers herself. La Nana is a microcosm of Latin social hierarchy while also focusing on one woman’s journey to free herself from a mental servitude of her own making.
Contact: http://www.themaidmovie.com/ JACOB WOLTERS Oscilloscope Laboratories 511 Canal Street, 5E New York, NY 10013 212.219.4029 ex. 38(p) 212.219.9538 (f) jacob@oscilloscope.net
13m; Israel
Director: Yonatan Ben Efrat
Synopsis: At one of central Israel’s largest junctions, in a surreal underground world, live hundreds of Palestinian workers in hiding in order to find a day’s work and bring something home to their families in the West Bank. Deep in the concrete skeleton of an abandoned shopping mall, the workers sleep during the week. Those who have been arrested in the past confirm that the mall is worse than jail, yet they don’t ask for freedom – they only want a day’s work.
Contact: 2009 Geneva Labour Film Shorts Festival World Health Organisation and Video 48
2007, US, 58 minutes
Directed by Laura Pacheco
Produced by John de Graaf and Laura Pacheco
Writer – John de Graaf
Executive Producer – Joan Blades
Photographer/Editor – Diana Wilmar
Music – Claudia Schmidt
Narrator – Mary Steenburgen
Looks at the obstacles facing working mothers and families and the employer and public policy changes needed to restore work-life balance.
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