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Category Archives: Migrant workers

The Sixth Section (2003)

13 Jun

26m; U.S.

Director: Alex Rivera

Synopsis: The Sixth Section opens a surprising window on immigration in the 21st century. Following a group of Mexican immigrants from the tiny desert town of Boqueron who now work in upstate New York, the film documents their struggle to support themselves — and their hometown 3,000 miles to the south. To do this, the men form a ‘union’ that raises money in the form of weekly donations of $10 or $20 from each of its members in New York. In the past few years the group has brought electricity, an ambulance, and, most dramatically, a 2,000-seat baseball stadium to Boqueron. The Sixth Section is an intimate portrait of how the ‘American Dream’ is being redefined by today’s immigrants.

Contact: http://www.pbs.org/pov/thesixthsection/

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration, Migrant workers

 

Two Acres of Land / Do Bigha Zamin (1953)

13 Jun

131m; India

Director: Bimal Roy

Cast: Balraj Sahni, Nirupa Roy and Rattan Kumar

Synopsis: A small Bengali landowner and his young son are in danger when their two-acre farmland where they live is in danger of being taken over by a local zamindar (feudal lord) for failure to pay for mounting debits. They move to Calcutta where the father tries making a living as a rickshaw puller while his wife joins him but falls ill which threatens everything they have going to try to save their ancestral home.

Contact: Shemaroo Video Pvt. Ltd. (2003) (India) (DVD) Shemaroo House No. 18 Marol Co-operative-Industrial Estate Andheri East, Mumbai 400059 India Phn: +91 222 8529911

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Cities-Urban, Drama, Migrant workers

 

Uprooted: Refugees of the Global Economy

13 Jun

28m;

Synopsis: The compelling tale of those forced by the global economy to leave their home countries.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Global Economy, Migrant workers

 

The Wages of Fear (1953)

13 Jun


131m; France

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot

Cast: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel and Peter van Eyck

Synopsis: In a remote part of Venezuela right after World War II various European emigres look for work in the oil fields.  When a giant fire erupts, several of these men are hired to transport large stocks of nitroglycerine, which involves traversing a long stretch of treacherous terrain.  Fantastic acting and a truly suspenseful film.

(NYT) Where to watch: Kanopy and the Criterion Channel; available for rental on Amazon and iTunes.

Few jobs are as harrowing as the one four desperate expatriates undertake in this thrilling film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Men too broke to escape a sweaty Latin American village leap at the chance to earn $2,000 apiece driving an emergency shipment of nitroglycerin 300 miles to extinguish an oil inferno for an American company. The company, circumventing its union drivers and rules, provides open-bed trucks that lack even rudimentary safety features like shock absorbers.

One driver is Yves Montand in a breakthrough role, cigarette hanging from his lip and kerchief rakishly tied around his neck, as he grips the juddering steering wheel along treacherous jungle roads through this relentless, heart-stopping journey of teamwork, cowardice and betrayal. HELEN T. VERONGOS

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Crime-Action, Drama, Migrant workers

 

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Waiting for Happiness (2002)

13 Jun

95m; Mauritania, Africa

Director: Abderrahmane Sissako

Cast: Khatra Ould Abder Kader, Maata Ould Mohamed Abeidand Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamed

Synopsis (IMDB): On the seacoast of Mauritania, some wait to go to Europe. Khatra, a spirited boy, wants an electric light so he can read at night. A stoic older man, Maata, tries to wire the room. Abdallah, a youth on his way to Europe, says good-bye to his mother. Nana looks back on the death of her daughter and her trip to Europe to inform the father. A girl takes singing lessons. Rooms have small windows, looking out onto foot traffic; transistor radios provide some link beyond. Huge ships anchor in the distance. The train comes through, stopping briefly. Offering a cigarette is a gesture of hospitality. Sand dunes and the ocean dominate the landscape. Hope springs amidst small expectations.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Migrant workers

 

Workers Dreams (2007)

13 Jun

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.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Global Economy, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Manufacturing, Migrant workers, Women

 

YAMA, Attack to Attack! (1986)

13 Jun

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.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Migrant workers

 

Zimbabwe (2008)

13 Jun

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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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Migrant workers

 

The Sleep Dealer (2008)

07 May

90m; Mexico

Director: Alex Rivera

Cast: Luis Fernando Peña, Leonor Varela and Jacob Vargas

Synopsis: Mexican man from the provinces whose family and home are destroyed by terrorist-seeking drones goes to Tijuana, where he joins a workforce of illegal workers whose labor is transported electronically across the border.

Contact: alex@alexrivera.com http://sleepdealer.com/ Alex Rivera 611 Broadway, #836 NY NY 10012

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in 2026 Shortlist, Automation, Migrant workers, SciFi, Technology

 

Spare Parts (2003)

07 May

87m; Italy

Director: Damjan Kozole

Cast: Peter Musevski, Aljosa Kovacic and Primoz Petkovsek

Synopsis (IMDB): Embittered widower, Ludvik, spends his nights transporting illegal refugees in his van from Croatia, across Slovenia, and into Italy. The young and inexperienced Rudi acts as his helpmate. Together they become a well-trained duo who almost every night convey “spare parts” to Italy. Of course the story of their illegitimate exports into Europe ends tragically, for everyone. The whole idea of this account is that everyone – including ourselves – is looking for happiness: the “spare parts” because of the misery they are plunged into without, and our characters because they can’t find it inside

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Legal System, Migrant workers

 
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