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Category Archives: Children

The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun (1999)

20 Apr

43m; Senegal

Director: Djibril Diop Mambety

Cast: Lissa Balera, Aminata Fall and Tayerou M’Baye

Synopsis: African master Djibril Diop Mambety’s final film brings us the feisty Sili Lam, a twelve year old paraplegic who becomes the first girl to sell a daily newspaper in the competitive world of young male newspaper vendors. She takes on a policeman whom she accuses of shaking her down as well as the boys who taunt her. When some boys take her newspapers and crutches, and her friend asks her “What next?” she triumphantly responds, “We continue”. The scenes – moving, satiric and comic, are expertly played by non-professional actors to a score by acclaimed musician Wasis Diop (Mambety’s brother).

Contact: The film can be viewed here: http://www.fandor.com/films/the_little_girl_who_sold_the_sun

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Children, Women

 

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

20 Apr

104m; U.K.

Director: Tony Richardson

Cast: Michael Redgrave, Tom Courtenay and Avis Bunnage

Synopsis: A  rebellious youth, sentenced to a boy’s reformatory for robbing a bakery, rises through the ranks of the institution through his prowess as a long distance runner. During his solitary runs, reveries of his life and times before his incarceration lead him to re-evaluate his privileged status as the Governor’s prize runner.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Children, Drama, Working Class

 

Los Olvidados (1950)

20 Apr

86m; Mexico

Director: Luis Buñuel

Cast: Alfonso Mejía, Roberto Cobo and Estela Inda

Synopsis: A group of juvenile delinquents live a violent and crime-filled life in the festering slums of Mexico City.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Children, Crime-Action, Drama, Legal System, Working Class

 

Machuca (2004)

20 Apr

121m; Chile

Director: Andrés Wood

Cast: Matías Quer, Ariel Mateluna and Manuela Martelli

Synopsis (IMDB): A wonderful coming-of-age film set in Santiago, Chile during the last year of Salvador Allende’s democratic socialist government and the first years of the Augusto Pinochet regime.  The film follows two boys, one Pedro Machuca from the city’s poor slums and the other, Gonzalo Infante, from an upper-class family.  The two meet when a new government program starts placing children from poorer communities in more affluent schools and the two start to bond.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Children, Drama, Labor History, Politics, Working Class

 

Mighty Times: The Children’s March (2004)

20 Apr

40m; U.S.

Director: Robert Houston

Synopsis: About young people organizing in Birmingham, Alabama when the elders were encouraging slowing down civil rights organizing.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Blacks, Children, Documentary, Organizing

 

The Mother (Mat) [1926]

20 Apr

90m; U.S.S.R.

Director: Vsevolod Pudovkin

Synopsis: Set in Russia during the harsh winter of 1905. A mother finds herself caught in emotional conflict between her husband and son when they find themselves on opposite sides of a worker’s strike. The son is a supporter of the workers but the father has been blackmailed into supporting the bosses and blacklegs. Despite the grief which follows the mother gradually comes to support the strikers and eventually is prepared to risk everything in standing up to police and Cossak troops in a demonstration endangering both herself and her precious son.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Children, Drama, Labor History, Organizing, Politics, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

Mr. Mom (1983)

20 Apr

91m; U.S.

Director: Stan Dragoti

Cast: Michael Keaton, Teri Garr and Fred Koehler

Synopsis (IMDB): Jack and Caroline are a couple making a decent living when Jack suddenly loses his job. They agree that he should stay at home and look after the house while Caroline works. It’s just that he’s never done it before, and really doesn’t have a clue.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Children, Comedy, Drama, Unemployment-Wages, White Collar

 

Naked Hearts (Les Coeurs verts) [1966]

20 Apr

90m; France

Director: Édouard Luntz

Cast: Gérard Zimmermann, Marise Maire and Eric Penet

Synopsis: Story of French juvenile delinquents after they leave a reformatory.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Children, Drama

 

Newsies (1992)

20 Apr

121m; U.S.

Director: Kenny Ortega

Cast: Christian Bale, Bill Pullman and Robert Duvall

Synopsis (IMDB): July, 1899: When Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst raise the distribution price one-tenth of a cent per paper, ten cents per hundred, the newsboys, poor enough already, are outraged. Inspired by the strike put on by the trolley workers, Jack “Cowboy” Kelly (Christian Bale) organizes a newsboys’ strike. With David Jacobs (David Moscow) as the brains of the new union, and Jack as the voice, the weak and oppressed found the strength to band together and challenge the powerful.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Children, Class, Collective Bargaining, Drama, Labor History, Musical, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

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No to Child Labour, Yes to Education: Teachers’ unions working to prevent school dropouts (2008)

20 Apr

10m; Morocco

Synopsis: Child labour is one of the biggest obstacles to Education International’s aim of building a world in which every child has access to free, quality public education. In Morocco, where thousands of children every year are forced to drop out of primary school and go to work to help support their families, the Syndicat national de L’Enseignement (SNE) has had great success with its program to fight child labour by keeping children in school. The film follows Sara, who was compelled into domestic servitude because her family could no longer afford to feed her. With the help of the union, Sara is now back in school and working towards her dream of becoming a paediatrician.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Children, Documentary, Education

 
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