90m; France
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Cast: Joseph Gehrard, Marina Vlady and Anny Duperey
Synopsis: Prostitution becomes a metaphor for marriage and for working class; selling one’s body for food, shelter and consumer goods.
Category Archives: Occupation/Type of Work
Uncle Moses (1932)
88m; U.S.
Director: Sidney M. Goldin, Aubrey Scotto
Cast: Maurice Schwartz, Judith Abarbanel and Mark Schweid
Synopsis (IMDB): “Uncle” Moses is a wealthy garment store owner in the Lower East Side. He lords his wealth and its attendant power over the neighborhood, dispensing noblesse oblige and conducting casual affairs with numerous women. When he falls in love with the beautiful young daughter of one of his employees, he discovers what it is like to be beholden to another person. He convinces her to marry him, but she does so out of financial and social obligation, and Moses’ love remains distressingly unrequited. At the same time, the growing labor movement attacks him for his exploitative employment conditions, and Moses begins to doubt the truth of the American Dream he thought he had achieved.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1987)
110m; U.S.
Director: Stan Lathan
Cast: Avery Brooks, Kate Burton, Bruce Dern, Samuel L. Jackson
Synopsis: Film version of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist novel.
Under Rich Earth (Bajo Suelos Ricos) [2008]
92m; Ecuador
Director: Malcolm Rogge
Synopsis: Under Rich Earth is a story about ordinary people with extraordinary courage. In a remote mountain valley in Ecuador, coffee and sugarcane farmers face the dismal prospect of being forced off their land to make way for a mining project. Unprotected by the police and ignored by their government, they prepare to face down the invaders on their own. Their resistance ultimately leads to a remarkable and dangerous stand off between farmers and a band of armed paramilitaries deep in the cloud forest. In a world dominated by news of massacres and terrorism, Under Rich Earth offers a surprising and poignant tale of hope and determination.
Contact: rogge@ryecinema.com distribution@ryecinema.com http://underrichearth.ryecinema.com
Up In The Air (2010)
108m; U.S.
Director: Jason Reitman
Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick
Synopsis: With a job that has him traveling around the country firing people, Ryan Bingham leads an empty life out of a suitcase, until his company does the unexpected: ground him.
Uprising of 1934
How could such a pivotal moment in American history be kept a secret for 60 years? Textile workers recall with pride the long-supressed story of the General Textile Strike of 1934 when 500,000 Southern mill laborers walked off their jobs. George Stoney, Judith Helfand and Susanne Rostock’s probing film explores how the strike still impacts labor, power and economics in the South today.
http://www.pbs.org/pov/uprisingof34/
Uprooted: Refugees of the Global Economy
28m;
Synopsis: The compelling tale of those forced by the global economy to leave their home countries.
THE LABOR FILM DATABASE 