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Category Archives: Occupation/Type of Work

Over Land (2008)

20 Apr

59m; CanadaOverLand
Director: Steve Suderman

Synopsis: Family farmers face the threat of closing.

Over Land is an intimate and personal portrait of a family facing a crisis in agriculture. Between 1996 and 2006, despite warnings of an impending food shortage, prices for farm goods dropped to their lowest point in Canadian history, driving many farmers off the land. With a family history of farming spanning generations, the Sudermans now face a challenge that threatens to pull the family apart.

Over Land features original music composed and performed by Dirk Powell.The executive producer is Robin Schlaht. Directed by Steve Suderman.

Contact: steve@gorgeousproductions.ca 306-525-2524 (Home)

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Farm & Food, Global Economy, Unemployment-Wages, Working Class

 

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Pete Seeger: The Power of Song (2007)

20 Apr

93m; U.S.

Director: Jim Brown

Synopsis: This engaging documentary traces the life of folk icon Pete Seeger, emphasizing his lifelong belief in the power of music as both a social and a political force. Director Brown utilizes contemporary footage of Seeger and his wife,Toshi, along with newly remastered recordings of Seeger¹s songs, and interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and others. – Rochester Labor Film Series

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Arts/Culture, Documentary, Entertainment Industry, Labor History, Politics

 

Painting Red Square (2009)

20 Apr

5m; Canada
Director: Max Fraser
Available online

7000 km from Moscow, there’s another Red Square….Witness the struggle of the labour-left in Whitehorse to find a friendly watering hole where they can share a glass with their comrades and debate which shade of red is best. Paint, popcorn and a little beer get spilled along the way.

DVD with extra chapters: 20 mins

Featuring: Del Young and the gang at Red Square.

GENRE: Humour
Tags: Beer, Whitehorse, High Country Inn, TGIF, Paint, Red Square, Labour, Left, Canadian North

Max Fraser website

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Arts/Culture, Comedy, Documentary, Service Workers, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), Working Class

 

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Palace Cars and Paradise: The Pullman Model Town (1983)

20 Apr

28m; U.S.

Synopsis: Concerned with the model town that George Pullman conceived and named after himself in the 1880s to house the largely white task force of skilled and unskilled mechanics who labored in the company’s massive car construction and repair shop.

Contact: Available from the Illinois Labor History Society 28 E. Jackson Boulevard, Chicago Ill, 60604.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Transportation, Working Class

 

Paper Dolls (2006)

20 Apr

80m; Israel

Director: Tomer Heymann

Synopsis: “Paper Dolls” is a documentary film which explores changing patterns of global immigration and expanding notions of family through the prism of a community of Filipino transvestites who live illegally in Israel. Cast out by their families because of their sexual and gender preferences, these people work 6 days a week as live-in, 24 hour a day care givers (and in many cases as surrogate children) for elderly orthodox Jewish men, in order to earn money to send to their families in the Philippines that had rejected them. On their one free night per week, they pursue their own personal dreams as drag performers in the group they call “The Paper Dolls” in the relative freedom of cosmopolitan Tel Aviv. Despite having to deal with often harsh working conditions, threats by street criminals, fear of terrorist bombings and the constant peril of deportation, The Paper Dolls demonstrate a rare generosity of spirit, humanity and lust for life. Award winning filmmaker Tomer Heymann enters this unusual world and by coming to know and love these subjects unearths joy, sorrow and humanity which change his life forever

Contact: http://www.heymann-films.com/en/Films/Details/Paper-Dolls#/Images/Films/paper_dolls_1.jpg

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration, Service Workers

 

Pay Day (1922)

20 Apr

28m; U.S.

Director: Charles Chaplin

Cast: Charles Chaplin, Phyllis Allen and Mack Swain

Synopsis (IMDB): Charlie is an expert bricklayer. He has lots of fun and work and enjoys himself greatly while at the saloon. As he leaves work his wife takes the pay he has hidden in his hat. But he steals her purse so he can go out for the evening. He has a terrible time getting home on a very rainy night. When he does so he finds his wife waiting for him with a rolling pin.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Comedy, Construction Trades, Working Class

 

The Peasants of the Second Fortress (Sanrizuka: Dainitoride no hitobito) [1971]

20 Apr

143m; Japan

Director: Shinsuke Ogawa

Synopsis: Peasants, students, workers, and the filmmakers themselves join in a five year struggle to resist giving up land for a new international airport near Toyko.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Construction Trades, Documentary, Organizing, Transportation

 

The Phantom of the Operator (2004)

20 Apr

A film by Caroline Martel

Canada, 2004, 66 minutes, Color/BW, DVD, French, Subtitled
Order No. W05869
This wry and delightful found-footage film reveals a little-known chapter in labor history: the story of female telephone operators’ central place in the development of global communications. With an eye for the quirky and humorous, Caroline Martel assembles a dazzling array of clips – more than one hundred remarkable, rarely seen industrial, advertising and scientific management films produced in North America between 1903 and 1989 by Bell and Western Electric – and transforms them into a dreamlike montage documentary.

As the first agents of globalization, this invisible army of women offered a way for companies to feminize and glamorize what was a highly stressful, underpaid and difficult job. Not merely “Voices with a Smile,” telephone operators were shooting stars in a universe of infinite progress, test pilots for new management systems, and the face of shrewd public relations campaigns. As the work of operators has been eclipsed by the advent of automated systems, this artful piece of labor history also offers an insightful comment on women’s work, industrialization and communications technology. Refreshing and hilarious, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERATOR provides a wry yet ethereal portrait of human society in the technocratic age.

available from Women Make Movies
 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Automation, Communications, Documentary, Labor History, Women

 

Philips-Radio (1931) (aka The Symphonie Industrielle)

20 Apr

Director: Joris Ivens
36m

Country: Netherlands

An industrial film which shows the operations inside the Philips Radio plant: In a mêlée of activity, glassblowers make delicate glass bulbs. Machinery assists the bulb manufacture. A virtuoso glassblower begins a more complex tube used in radio broadcasting; it is then turned, fired, and sculpted. Conveyors carry partially completed units. Workers perform their various specific assembly-line tasks. Cases are manufactured and machined, wire harnesses are assembled, loudspeakers are produced. As radios near completion, they are run through a series of tests. Engineers and draughtsmen define future developments. In a closing stop-motion sequence, in a style reminiscent of Norman McLaren, a group of loudspeakers performs a playful dance. The film overall is a poetic depiction of an industrial process.Written by David Carless (IMDB)

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Automation, Communications, Documentary, Manufacturing, Technology

 

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The Philosopher Kings (2009)

20 Apr

70m; U.S.

Director: Patrick Shen

Synopsis: Some people we revere, some we despise and others we simply ignore. The figure of the invisible janitor at last acquires a face, name, and personality in this probing look at the wisdom that comes from lives lived fully.

Contact: Premiered at SilverDocs 2009 Eileen Street, The Philosopher Kings PR Coordinator (510) 910-5778 press@transcendfilms.com http://www.philosopherkingsmovie.com http://www.transcendfilms.com

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Philosophy, Service Workers

 
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