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Category Archives: Arts/Culture

The Conditions of the Working Class In England 

17 Jul

2012 British; 82 min.
Directed by Mike Wayne and Deirdre O’Neill

This film is inspired by Engels’ book written in 1844, The Condition of the Working Class in England. How much has really changed since then?

In 2012 a group of working class people from Manchester and Salford come together to create a theatrical show from scratch based on their own experiences and Engels’ book. They have eight weeks before their first performance. The Condition of the Working Class follows them from the first rehearsal to the first night performance and situates their struggle to get the show on stage in the context of the daily struggles of ordinary people facing economic crisis and austerity politics. The people who came together to do the show turned from a group of strangers, many of whom had never acted before, into The Ragged Collective, in little more than two months.

This film, full of political passion and anger, is a wonderful testament to the creativity, determination and camaraderie of working people that blows the media stereotypes of the working class out of the water.

 
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Posted by on July 17, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Class, Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Labor History, Working Class

 

Tangled Threads

29 Jun

“Tangled Threads” chronicles labor rights activist Kalpona Akter’s organizing efforts in Bangladesh’s garment industry before and after the Rana Plaza building collapse, which claimed the lives of at least 1,138 garment workers. It does so against the backdrop of two very different worlds: New York’s modeling industry, on the one hand, and Bangladesh’s garment industry, on the other. Produced by STZFilms.

Directed by: Sara Ziff

Sara Ziff is a New York-based filmmaker, fashion model, and labor activist. She co-directed and produced the feature documentary “Picture Me” (2009), which shed light on labor issues in the modeling industry, particularly sexual abuse. Currently she serves as co-founder and executive director of the Model Alliance, a nonprofit labor group for models working in the American fashion industry. Ziff first traveled to Bangladesh in 2012, when she began collaborating with the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS) and the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) to try to organize workers across fashion’s supply chain.

https://www.facebook.com/stzfilms

 

 
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Posted by on June 29, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Big Business/Corporations, Cities-Urban, Class, Consumerism, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Retail, Safety & Health, Textile Industry, Women, Working Class

 

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Through the Eye of the Needle: The Art of Esther Nisenthal Krinitz

28 Jun

Esther Nisenthal was 15 in October of 1942 when the Jews of her village in Poland were ordered by Nazis to report to a nearby train station. Esther’s story of survival is extraordinary because of her method of storytelling- stitching and embroidering. It comes to us in a series of 36 large fabric collages, intricately embroidered in vivid color, created more than 40 years after the war. They depict one young girl’s eyewitness account of the war, scenes of tragedy and trauma juxtaposed with the exquisite beauty.

Directed by: Nina Shapiro- Perl

http://artandremembrance.org/our-work/film/

 
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Posted by on June 28, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Documentary

 

The Real Rosie the Riveter Project

28 Jun

This archive of filmed oral histories was created by filmmakers Anne de Mare, Kirsten Kelly and Elizabeth Hemmerdinger under the guidance of the irreplaceable Dr. Michael Nash. The 48 women represented here provide a complex portrait of Rosie the Riveter, taking the viewer beyond the iconic “We Can Do It” poster girl and deep into the experiences real Rosies from diverse backgrounds, challenging the popular perception of women in American History. The filmmakers were inspired by the extraordinary women of The Real Rosie The Riveter Project to develop this material into an animated documentary project using new media technologies called The Girl With The Rivet Gun.

Directed by: Kirsten Kelly, Anne de Mare

http://dlib.nyu.edu/rosie/node/1029

 

 
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Posted by on June 28, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Automation, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), War, Women

 

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Overpass Light Brigade

23 Jun

‘Overpass Light Brigade’ is a short film that tells the story behind Wisconsin’s Holders of the Lights using innovative time-lapse photography and interviews with founding members and other activists. The film showcases OLB’s simple, beautiful approach to performance art and creating “the people’s bandwidth,” that beckons any who want to creatively join public discourse and voice concerns an elitist political system clamors to quiet.

Directed by: Dusan Harminc, Matt Mullins

http://olbfilm.com/

 
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Posted by on June 23, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Big Business/Corporations, Cities-Urban, Communications, Documentary, Organizing, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo)

 

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Truth Through A Lens

23 Jun

A stunning feature length debut by an SVA Soc Doc MFA graduate, Justin Thomas, who follows the evolution of Brooklyn street kid, subway train tagger and local community organizing legend, Dennis Flores. Dennis had the courage to pick up a camera, when he saw his neighbors being physically abused for simple demanding decent housing and better treatment by the local police. Of course Dennis himself quickly becomes the target of those for whom telling the truth is not necessarily considered part of the daily job.

https://www.facebook.com/truthlens2014

 
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Posted by on June 23, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Cities-Urban, Communications, Documentary, Education

 

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Tatanka

20 Jun

Behind every activist that fought for civil rights or occupied Wall Street, there was a loved one who also sacrificed. Tatanka follows the bizarre and heartrending journey of one man whose unchecked idealism helped change the world but nearly tore his family apart. This is a very personal and provocative look at a turbulent and life-changing time in our history. Featuring Joan Baez, Cesar Chavez and Daniel Ellsberg.

Directed by: Jacob Bricca

http://www.tatankamovie.com/

 
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Posted by on June 20, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Documentary, Labor History

 

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We Women Warriors

03 Feb

(Nicole Karsin, 2012, 82 min)
122 tribes of indigenous people caught between revolutionary guerillas and Colombian armed forces are an endangered species.
http://wewomenwarriors.com

 
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Posted by on February 3, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Documentary, Environment, Genre, Themes, Women

 

The Road to Rock Bottom: PBS Great Depression Series (1993)

03 Jul

PBS Great Depression Series, #2

Producer: WGBH, Boston

Narrator: Joe Morton

53 minutes

This film, the second in the PBS Great Depression Series, examines the plight of farmers, sharecroppers, and agricultural workers before and particularly during the onset of The Great Depression. Devoting ample time to the hardships of agricultural labor, it focuses on the devastating effects that environmental factors such as drought wrought on farmers, migrant laborers, and sharecroppers alike. Sliding farm prices due to the glut of products on the market spurred a cycle of diminishing returns for most farmers, exacerbating their indebtedness and causing foreclosures, homelessness, privation, and starvation. “The Road to Rock Bottom” also devotes considerable time to the allure that Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd had among many impoverished Americans in the early Depression era. A bank robber, Floyd enjoyed popular support–and occasionally some protection–among struggling farming communities, for Floyd’s targeting banks tapped into their resentment at institutions that, on the one hand many blamed for causing the Great Depression and, on the other, were increasingly foreclosing on their farms and homes. The inability and unwillingness of the federal government to devote far more resources to battling the onslaught of poverty and desperation receives ample attention in the documentary as well. Many politicians, including President Herbert Hoover, believed that increasing the federal government’s role in the daily lives of its citizens would foster dependency that ran counter to the themes of individualism permeating both America’s political parties at that time, and long-standing American political traditions. Culminating the film is the Bonus Army’s march to and occupation of parts of Washington D.C. Its unsuccessful efforts to pressure Congress to pay the service bonus to military veterans earlier than promised resulted in violent clashes between the Army (led by Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur) and the Bonus marchers, sealing the fate of the Hoover presidency well before his overwhelming electoral defeat to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential elections.

 

 
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Posted by on July 3, 2013 in Arts/Culture, Blacks, Children, Cities-Urban, Class, Documentary, Environment, Farm & Food, Labor History, Migrant workers, Self-Employed/Freelance, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), Working Class

 

Arsenal of Democracy: PBS Great Depression Series (1993)

02 Jul

PBS Great Depression Series, #7

Producer: WGBH, Boston

Narrator: Joe Morton

53 minutes

The seventh and final installment in the PBS Great Depression series, this film links the onset of World War II and the role of the United States as the primary producer of war materiel with the lingering struggles of the Great Depression. Blending oral history with photos from Dorothea Lange and others, archival films, and audio clips, “Arsenal of Democracy” details the persistent plight of the poor throughout the 1930s, especially for migrant workers, farmers, and the homeless who, despite the historical attention they received, often remained outside the public and political scope at that time. It also explores the social, cultural, and economic changes that the transition from peace to war wrought, such as the racism and discrimination that African Americans and Asians experienced during the 1930s and in hiring and job opportunities; the internment of Japanese Americans after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941; the use of racist imagery in wartime propaganda; greater employment opportunities for women and African Americans in wartime production; California’s incredible growth due to massive outlays of federal spending; and the end of the Great Depression.

 

 

 
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Posted by on July 2, 2013 in Arts/Culture, Blacks, Class, Discrimination: Racism, Sexism, etc, Documentary, Labor History, Manufacturing, Migrant workers, Politics, War, Women, Working Class

 
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