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Category Archives: Occupation/Type of Work

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

129m; U.S.

Director: John Ford

Cast: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell and John Carradine

Synopsis (IMDB): A poor Midwest family is forced off of their land. They travel to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.

 

Fun With Dick and Jane (1977)

95m; U.S.

Director: Ted Kotcheff

Cast: Jane FondaGeorge SegalEd McMahon

Synopsis (IMDB): When an upwardly mobile couple find themselves unemployed and in debt, they turn to armed robbery in desperation.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Comedy, White Collar, Working Class

 

Grounding: The Last Days of Swissair (2006)

120m; Switzerland

Director: Michael Steiner

Cast: Hanspeter MüllerGilles Tschudi and László I. Kish

Synopsis (IMDB): The demise of airline Swissair in 2001 was a huge blow to Switzerland’s economy and to the country’s morale. It was a sad day for Swiss history when the airline’s fleet was grounded on 2 October 2001. “Grounding” is set during the last days of the doomed airline, and tells the story of manager Mario A. Corti’s unhappy fate, the last, unlucky CEO at the traditional airline company, as well as of all those nameless people who lost almost everything in the maelstrom of Swissair’s downfall: their job, home and their belief in Switzerland

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Drama, Transportation, Working Class

 

Garbage Dreams (2009)

79m

Director: Mai Iskander

Synopsis (Documentary.org): Garbage Dreams follows three teenage boys born into the trash trade and growing up in the world’s largest garbage village, on the outskirts of Cairo. It is the home to 60,000 Zaballeen–Arabic for “garbage people.” Far ahead of any modern “Green” initiatives, the Zaballeen survive by recycling 80 percent of the garbage they collect. When their community is suddenly faced with the globalization of its trade, each of the teenage boys is forced to make choices that will impact his future and the survival of his community.

Website: http://www.garbagedreams.com/

 
 

General Line (1929) (aka Old and New)

directed by Sergei EisensteinOldAndNew
121m

The General Line was begun in 1927 as a celebration of the collectivization of agriculture, as championed by old-line Bolshevik Leon Trotsky. Hoping to reach a wide audience, the director forsook his usual practice of emphasizing groups by concentrating on a single rural heroine. Eisenstein briefly abandoned this project to film October: Ten Days That Shook the World, in honour of the 10th anniversary of the Revolution. By the time he was able to return to this film, the Party’s attitudes had changed and Trotsky had fallen from grace. As a result, the film was hastily re-edited and sent out in 1929 under a new title,The Old and the New. In later years, archivists restored The General Line to an approximation of Eisenstein’s original concept. Much of the director’s montage-like imagery—such as using simple props to trace the progress from the agrarian customs of the 19th-century to the more mechanized procedures of the 20th—was common to both versions of the film. (Wikipedia)
The General Line is available for free download at the Internet Archive 

 
 

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Gervaise (1956)

112m; France

Director: René Clément

Cast: Maria Schell, François Périer and Jany Holt

Synopsis: Story of a scrubwoman’s struggle to climb out of poverty and how she sinks back in. Based on the Emile Zola novel.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Drama, Service Workers, Women, Working Class

 

The Ghosts Of Duffy’s Cut

52m; Ireland

Director: Stephen Rooke & Ruan Magan

Synopsis: The story of indentured Irish workers from Duffy, Ireland, who were brought to the United States in April 1832 to build one of the earliest stretches of railroad in Pennsylvania.

Contact: http://www.tilefilms.ie/ info@tilefilms.ie Rachel Towell, Producer: rachel@tilefilms.ie

 

 

Gigante (2009)

84m; Uruguay

Director: Adrián Biniez

Cast: Horacio Camandule, Leonor Svarcas and Ignacio Alcuri

Synopsis: A chronicle of a supermarket security guard’s obsession with a late-shift janitor.

 

The Given Word (O Pagador de Promessas) [1962]

98m; Brazil

Director: Anselmo Duarte

Synopsis: Brazilian farmer in Northern Brazil carries a huge cross to the church to save his sick donkey. The priest refuses him entry and the working class in the town rally to his support.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Drama, Farm & Food, Working Class

 

Giving Care (2007)

11m; 

Director: Clarissa De Los Reyes

Synopsis: When a phone call brings news of her father’s death in the Philippines, a Filipino caregiver working illegally in New York City must make a choice between her duties as the family breadwinner and her desire to go home to grieve her father’s death. “Giving Care” is a story about one of the worst fears of an immigrant far away from home: not being there when a loved one goes.