50m; Vietnam
Director: Tran Phuong Thao
Synopsis: Thousands of young women now work in foreign owned factories in Vietnam for approximately $2 a day. This film shows the lives of these young rural women who end up in a Japanese Canon factory in the Hanoi area. Hoping to make a new life with many consumer goods around them they are ground up in the capitalist system and their dreams and illusions about the new Vietnam are crushed.
113m; U.S.
Director: Mike Nichols
Cast: Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver
Synopsis (IMDB): Tess McGill is a frustrated secretary, struggling to forge ahead in the world of big business in New York. She gets her chance when her boss breaks her leg on a skiing holiday. McGill takes advantage of her absence to push ahead with her career. She teams up with investment broker Jack Trainer to work on a big deal. The situation is complicated after the return of her boss.
55m; U.S.
Director: College of Labor and Employment Lawyers
Synopsis: Documentary highlighting labor turbulence in the 60s and 70s through the eyes of former Labor Secretaries Willard Wirtz and Bill Usery. Includes the pilots strike among other events, and shows “vividly how labor secretaries can differ in interests and style, with very different effects on labor.”
Contact: College Executive Director Susan Wan SWan@gibsondunn.com 202-955-8225
15m; U.S.
Director: Laura Fishman
Synopsis: How the WGA won a fair share from the entertainment industry.
Contact: lfishman@ucsc.edu
Release Date: 1996 Duration: 107 min
Cast: José Wilker
Xica da Silva (released as Xica in the United States) is a 1976 Brazilian film directed and written by Carlos Diegues, based on the novel by João Felício dos Santos pt:João Felício dos Santos. It stars Zezé Motta, Walmor Chagas and José Wilker. It was chosen as the Brazilian submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 49th Academy Awards, but it failed to get a nomination. The film is based on the novel Memórias do Distrito de Diamantina, written by João Felicio dos Santos (who has a small role in the film as a Roman Catholic pastor). It is a romanticized retelling of the true story of Chica da Silva, an 18th century African slave in the state of Minas Gerais, who attracts the attention of João Fernandes de Oliveira, a Portuguese sent by Lisbon with the Crown’s exclusive contract for mining diamonds, and eventually becomes his lover. He quickly asserts control, letting the intendant and other authorities know that he’s onto their corruption scheme. Eventually Lisbon hears of João’s excesses and sends an inspector. José, a political radical, provides Xica refuge.
110m; Japan
Director: Sato Mitsuo / Yamaoka Kyoichi
Synopsis: In Tokyo the area stretching from Taito Ward to Arakawa Ward was formerly called Sanya. (Locals refer to this area as “Yama”.) Today, Sanya is a place where day laborers come together to live and find work. These laborers usually do what their employers tell them, and are often targets for exploitation by yakuza gangsters and right-wing groups. But the workers decided to form a labor union and begin to fight for improved working conditions, and it was this that director Sato Mitsuo tried to capture with his camera. However, the strike became a violent clash between workers and gangsters, and on the eleventh day of filming Sato was stabbed to death by a member of the yakuza. After the funeral was over, and the confusion of not having a director had passed, the task of completing the film passed on to Yamaoka Kyoichi (a key player in the labor disputes), and the production and exhibition committee. This film takes us around the country to several gathering places in Kotobuki-cho, Kamagasaki, Sasajima, and Fukuoka, showing us the struggle for the cause of day laborers who are dying in poverty. We are also taken to the mining community of Chikuho, which is where many of the laborers come from. Returning to Sanya, we see once more the continuing struggle taking place there, tied together with the symbolic image of the rising sun. Unfortunately, after filming was completed, and just prior to the premiere screening, the second director Yamaoka Kyoichi was shot to death. Both directors of this film were murdered.
58m; U.S.
Director: Robert & Marjory Potts
Synopsis: Biography of the first woman cabinet secretary and “mother” of Social Security, Frances Perkins.
Synopsis: From Frontline, this production looks at the discriminatory practices by the banks of America and the dire consequences that result when the foremost mortgage-lending institutes set their loan protocol based on any color other than green. Brought to video by PBS, correspondent Bill Schechner introduces two African-American professionals, Peter and Dolores Green who are suing a Chicago area bank for refusing to finance the purchase of the home they have lived in for 30 years. In association with the Center for Investigative Reporting, this documentary shows the tragic effects of racial bias as entire neighborhoods find themselves fighting for economic survival.
82m; South Africa/Zimbabwe
Director: Darrell James Roodt
Cast: Kudzai Chimbaira, Farai Veremu, Natasha Gandi, Mildred Chipuriro, Phinneus Ncube, Folen Murapa
Synopsis: Painful and topical drama about labour migration from Zimbabwe to South Africa. Seen through the eyes of a 19-year-old orphan girl, Roodt shows that border inhabitants don’t have much choice.
Contact: Hubert Bals Fund, bits@osfilmes.com.br
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