30m; U.S.
Director: Richard Brick
Synopsis (IMDB): Filmed in Orange County, Vermont, featuring Kenneth and Helen O’Donnell and their draft horses, Last Stand Farmer, is a documentary record, filmed through four seasons, of the life and philosophy of an elderly hill farmer and his struggle to keep his 19th century farm operation going. Soon after he viewed the finished film, Kenneth O’Donnell died, his widow sold the farm and moved away the following spring.
82m; China/Canada
Director: Lixin Fan
Synopsis: Every spring, China’s cities are plunged into chaos, as all at once, a tidal wave of humanity attempts to return home by train. It is the Chinese New Year. The wave is made up of millions of migrant factory workers. The homes they seek are the rural villages and families they left behind to seek work in the booming coastal cities. It is an epic spectacle that tells us much about China, a country discarding traditional ways as it hurtles towards modernity and global economic dominance. Last Train Home, an emotionally engaging and visually beautiful debut film from Chinese-Canadian director Lixin Fan, draws us into the fractured lives of a single migrant family caught up in this desperate annual migration.
Contact: http://www.eyesteelfilm.com/?page_id=60 info@eyesteelfilm.com 4475 St. Laurent, suite #202 Montreal, Quebec CANADA H2W 1z8 Phone directory: phone: +1 (514) 937-4893
44m; France
Director: Djibril Diop Mambéty
Cast: Dieye Ma Dieye, Aminata Fall and Demba Bâ
Synopsis (IMDB): A penniless, fast-thinking musician buys a lottery ticket which he glues to his back door, in hopes of eventually retrieving his instrument from his exasperating landlady. The ticket wins, and our hero begins a harrowing odyssey throughout his shanty town, carrying the door on his shoulder all the time
45m; U.S.
Director: Joe Cultrera
Synopsis: Story of the rise and fall of an American factory town.
Contact: http://www.udel.edu/global/documentary/leftbehind/Site/Home.html
48m; U.S.
Synopsis: In this program—a follow-up to the alarming 1960 broadcast Harvest of Shame, which first awakened the nation to the plight of migrant workers—correspondents Dan Rather and Randall Pinkston document the ongoing exploitation of America’s invisible laborers while highlighting efforts being made to protect them. Topics of investigation include pesticide risks, the uneven enforcement of employment and immigration regulations, and peonage, as well as the efforts of rural legal services and progressive growers to advocate for this silent minority and provide equitable employment opportunities.
Contact: http://ffh.films.com/id/4522/Legacy_of_Shame_Migrant_Labor_an_American_Institution.htm
180m; France
Director: Olivier Assayas
Cast: Emmanuelle Béart, Charles Berling and Isabelle Huppert
Synopsis (IMDB): Responsibility versus happiness. Jean Barnery is a young Protestant cleric in Barbazac in 1900 when he divorces his severe wife after falling in love with Pauline, the independent-minded niece of an upper-crust parishioner. Jean’s also an heir to a high-end porcelain factory in Limoges. He gives his fortune to his wife to assuage his guilt over the divorce. He pursues Pauline; they marry and live idyllically in Switzerland. Then, duty calls: his family asks him to come to Limoges to run the business. He accepts, ignoring Pauline’s wishes. His new responsibilities, as well as his fighting in the Great War, change him and his relationship with Pauline
9m; Australia
Director: Adrian Francis
Synopsis: When the 9-to-5 shift ends and workers head home, Maia, an office cleaner, begins her workday. Adrian Francis accompanies her on her rounds as she ruminates on the solitary nature of her job, insisting that it is not a lonely one: She does not live with people themselves, but with the objects they have left behind.
110m; Austria
Director: Erwin Wagenhofer
Synopsis: “Follow the money” is a mantra in both crime and business, perhaps coincidentally and perhaps not. For director Erwin Wagenhofer, whose 2005 documentary sensation WE FEED THE WORLD traced the global path of food from raw materiel to table, it was perhaps inevitable that his follow-up would be the visual tone poem to commerce, LET’S MAKE MONEY. From Indian slums to Hong Kong boardrooms, the Spanish real estate bubble to the World Bank, Wagenhofer is there to juxtapose captains of industry-“there’s a famous saying that the best time to buy is when there’s blood on the streets,” says one-with those actual streets, where laborers work in primitive conditions and billboards offer goods and services they can’t possibly afford.
41m; Turkey
Director: Petra Holzer, Selçuk Erzurumlu, Ethem Özgüven Kurgu
Synopsis: Tuzla graveyard overlooks massive shipbuilding area where great profits are made and workers die.
Contact: http://4857-documentary.blogspot.com/ petramh@gmail.com
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