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Category Archives: Occupation/Type of Work

Love, Women and Flowers (1988)

18 Apr

58m

Directors: Marta Rodriguez and Jorge Silva

Synopsis (Women Make Movies): At any time of year in the U.S., carnations of every color are plentiful and cheap – but the ready availability of these beautiful flowers comes at a global price. Thousands of miles away from the bright displays in U.S. stores, hazardous labor conditions endanger the 90,000 women who work in Colombia’s flower industry.

According to a 2007 report, approximately 60 percent of all flowers sold in the U.S. come from Colombia, where the use of pesticides and fungicides – some banned in the developed countries that export them – has drastic health and environmental consequences. With urgency and intimacy, this film evokes the testimonies of the women workers and documents their efforts to organize. As women workers continue to struggle in this industry (in 2007 almost 200 workers were fired from the largest flower plantation in Colombia for their attempts to unionize and improve their conditions) this powerful and unique documentary remains an important resource for those interested in globalization, environmentalism, labor issues, social struggles, and Latin American studies.

Website: http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c71.shtml

 
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Posted by on April 18, 2012 in Documentary, Farm & Food, Global Economy, Women

 

Highway Courtesans (2005)

18 Apr

71m

Director: Mystelle Brabbee

Synopsis (Women Make Movies): This provocative coming-of-age film chronicles the story of a bold young woman born into the Bachara community in Central India – the last hold-out of a tradition that started with India’s ancient palace courtesans and now survives with the sanctioned prostitution of every Bachara family’s oldest girl. Guddi, Shana and their neighbor Sungita serve a daily stream of roadside truckers to support their families. Their work as prostitutes forms the core of the local economy, but their contemporary ideas about freedom of choice, gender and self-determination slowly intrude on the Bachara way of life.

HIGHWAY COURTESANS follows Guddi from the ages of 16 through 23 as she turns her world upside down, incurring the wrath of her fathers and brother as she struggles with tradition, family and love in hopes of realizing her dreams. In probing beyond the surface of a world of paradoxes, HIGHWAY COURTESANS resists easy moralizing and reveals the very real costs – financial, social and personal – for breaking with tradition. As a community hangs in the balance between traditional and contemporary values, this gripping documentary raises universal questions about sex, the roles of women, and the right of one culture to judge another.

Website: http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c654.shtml

 
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Posted by on April 18, 2012 in Documentary, Sex Industry/Sexuality, Women

 

Nalini By Day, Nancy by Night (2005)

18 Apr

27m

Director: Sonali Gulati

Synopsis (Women Make Movies): In this insightful documentary, filmmaker Sonali Gulati explores complex issues of globalization, capitalism and identity through a witty and personal account of her journey into India’s call centers. Gulati, herself an Indian immigrant living in the US, explores the fascinating ramifications of outsourcing telephone service jobs to India—including how native telemarketers take on Western names and accents to take calls from the US, UK and Australia.

A fresh juxtaposition of animation, archival footage, live action shots and narrative work highlight the filmmaker’s presence and reveal the performative aspects of her subjects. With fascinating observations on how call centers affect the Indian culture and economy, NALINI BY DAY, NANCY BY NIGHT raises important questions about the complicated consequences of globalization.

Website: http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c682.shtml

 
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Posted by on April 18, 2012 in Communications, Documentary, Global Economy, Women

 

Apache 8 (2011)

17 Apr

57m

Director: Sande Zeig

Synopsis (Women Make Movies): Between 1974 and 2005, a crew of women from the White Mountain Apache Tribe fought raging fires in Arizona and other states. Featuring extensive interviews, childhood photos, and on-location and news footage, this insightful and honest documentary profiles the Apache 8 group through four women, who share their experiences. Interweaving the scenes of raging fires, intense training sessions, and disrupted home life are personal stories of sacrifice, tragedy, pride, and accomplishment. While the women may have initially set out to try and earn a living in their economically ravaged community, they quickly discover an inner strength and resilience that speaks to their traditions and beliefs as Native women.

Website: http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c815.shtml

 
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Posted by on April 17, 2012 in Documentary, Public Sector, Women

 

Europlex (2003)

17 Apr

20m

Directors: Ursula Biemann and Angela Sanders

Synopsis (Women Make Movies): The fourth in Ursula Biemann’s critically acclaimed series of video essays that investigates migration across borders, EUROPLEX, a collaboration with Angela Sanders, tracks the daily, sometimes illicit, border crossings between Morocco and Spain- a rare intersection of the first and third worlds. Paying off officials to look the other way, workers smuggle contraband across the border, sometimes crossing up to 11 times a day. In a now common scenario of global economics, Moroccan women work in North Africa to produce goods destined for the European market. And in perhaps the most surreal example of border logic, domesticas commute into a Spanish enclave in Moroccan territory, losing two hours as they step into the European time zone. With a mesmerizing soundtrack and a dizzying blend of video footage, digital graphics and text, the film exposes a fascinating, often hidden layer in the cultural and economic landscape between Europe and Africa- revealing the new rules and profound implications of globalization.

Website: http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c620.shtml

 
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Posted by on April 17, 2012 in Documentary, Migrant workers, Women

 

Escuela (School) [2002]

17 Apr

53m

Director: Hannah Weyer

Synopsis (Women Make Movies): There are over 800,000 students enrolled in migrant education programs in the United States and, of those, only 45-50% ever finish high school. ESCUELA, the sequel to Hannah Weyer’s critically acclaimed documentary LA BODA, personalizes these glaring statistics through the honest portrait of a teenage Mexican-American farm worker, Liliana Luis.

Website: http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c573.shtml

 
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Posted by on April 17, 2012 in Children, Documentary, Farm & Food, Migrant workers

 

The Ford Massacre (1932)

17 Apr

8m

Producer: Detroit Workers’ Newsreel Special

Synopsis (BAM/PFA): The only newsreel coverage of the historic mass march in downtown Detroit on February 4, 1932, against the starvation program of Hoover/Murphy, and the armed, unprovoked attack by Dearborn police and Ford “guards” on unemployed auto workers at the gates of the River Rouge plant.

 
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Posted by on April 17, 2012 in Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Manufacturing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

The Weavers of Nishijin (1961)

14 Apr

25m

Director: Toshio Matsumoto

Synopsis (VEEHD): A documentary about traditional weavers of Nishijin. — “Documentaries up until then were mostly made with the backing of a labor union or Communist Party organization. If you thought of doing something different from that you had to create a completely different support structure because there was no foundation for making such films or showing them. You were forced to start from there. Right at that time just after the setback over the 1960 US-Japan Security Treaty I filmed the documentary Nishijin with the backing of a film viewer society called the “Kyoto Society for Viewing Documentary Cinema.” Of course in terms of awareness they were left-wing but still not what you call a political organization. I think they were the first to try to cultivate new spectators and make the kind of films they wanted to see on their own. As an initial plan I proposed something like what Ive just been talking about and got their approval to address Kyotos Nishijin with the aim of giving form to something more deeply submerged within the situation something warped and hard to express. I wasn’t trying to depict the place called Nishijin or show people weaving but to give shape to the thick silent unvoiced voices lurking beneath Nishijin. I eliminated so-called “unusual” subjects or decisive moments and opted for the form of a cine poem that persistently piled up exacting images. Opinion was divided over the results but the fact it won the Silver Lion at the Venice International Documentary Film Festival helped clear the way for my next steps.” Toshio Matsumoto

Website: http://www.ubu.com/film/matsumoto.html

 
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Posted by on April 14, 2012 in Documentary, Textile Industry

 

BURN: One Year on the Front Lines of the Battle to Save Detroit (2012)

14 Apr

Director: Tom Putnam

Synopsis: BURN is a character-driven documentary about Detroit, told through the eyes of Detroiters who are on the front lines, trying to rescue and rebuild it. BURN follows the firefighters, the men and women charged with the thankless task of saving a city that many have written off as dead. We also look at the educators, the reformers, the activists, the enthusiasts — those who have the vision and the heart to bring a forgotten American dream back to Detroit.

Website: http://detroitfirefilm.org
Tom Putnam: tom@tomputnam.net

 

 
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Posted by on April 14, 2012 in Documentary, Public Sector

 

Signed, Sealed and Delivered: Labor Struggle in the Post Office (1980)

14 Apr

45m

Directors: Tami Gold, Dan Gordon, Erik Lewis

Synopsis (AndersonGold Films): On July 21, 1978 thousands of postal workers across the country walked off their jobs when their contract expired, saying “No” to mandatory overtime, forced speedups and hazardous working conditions. As a result of this wildcat strike, six hundred thousand postal workers won a better contract. But two hundred workers were arbitrarily fired by management to teach all postal workers a lesson.

SIGNED, SEALED and DELIVERED… is the story of the struggle these postal workers waged to win back their jobs. It follows their fight into the streets, onto the floor of the American Postal Workers Union’s National Convention and among workers and communities nationwide. But it took the tragic death of Michael McDermott, a 25 year old mailhandler who was sucked into a conveyor belt and crushed to death, to bring their hazardous working conditions to national attention.

Website: http://www.andersongoldfilms.com/films/documentaries/ssd.htm

 
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Posted by on April 14, 2012 in Documentary, Public Sector, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 
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