130m; U.S.
Director: Roman Polanski
Contact: Barney Clark, Ben Kingsley and Jeremy Swift
Synopsis (IMDB): An adaptation of the classic Dickens tale, where an orphan meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. From there, he joins a household of boys who are trained to steal for their master.
98m; U.K.
Director: Gaby Dellal
Cast: Peter Mullan, Brenda Blethyn and Billy Boyd
Synopsis (IMDB): After decades of laboring as a Glasgow shipbuilder, Frank Redmond, a no-nonsense 55-year-old working-class man, suddenly finds himself laid off. For the first time in his life, he is without a job or a sense of direction, and he’s too proud to ask for guidance. His best mates – rascally Danny, timid Norman and cynical Eddie – are there for him, but Frank still feels desperately alone. An offhand remark from Danny inspires Frank to challenge himself. Already contemplating the state of his relationships with loving wife Joan and all-but-estranged son Rob, Frank is determined to shore up his own self-confidence. He will attempt the near impossible – swimming the English Channel. As Frank plunges headlong into his new daily life, his astonished friends are swept along with him. Prodded by stalwart fish-and-chips shop owner Chan, the men support Frank, train him – and keep their goal secret from his wife and son.
79m; U.S.
Director: Dudley Murphy
Contact: Sylvia Sidney, Leif Erickson and Myron McCormick
Synopsis (IMDB): A fire in a run-down tenement building injures young Joey Rogers. Wealthy passerby Peter Cortlant rushes the boy and his attractive older sister Mary to the hospital and pays the medical expenses for the poverty-stricken family. Only later does Peter learn that the firetrap tenement is one of his own vast real estate holdings. Faced with his own unwitting complicity in the deaths and injuries resultant from the fire and with his growing attachment to Mary, Peter decides to tear down his tenements and erect decent affordable housing. But his family is aghast at his plan and plots to wreck it.
9m; U.S.
Director: Marty Shea
Synopsis: A 1st grader visits the school guidance counselor and must decide what she wants to be for the rest of her life.
Contact: Marty Shea 773-989-8501 tragedies@crewdocs.com
101m; U.K.
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Terence Stamp, Carol White and John Bindon
Synopsis (IMDB): A young woman lives a life filled with bad choices. She marries and has a child with an abusive thief at a young age who quickly ends up in prison. Left alone she takes up with his mate (another thief) who seems to give her some happiness but who also ends up in the nick. She then takes up with a series of seedy types who offer nothing but momentary pleasure. Her son goes missing and she briefly comes to grips with what is most important to her.
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
55m; U.S.
Synopsis: A grandfather recounts the history of labor unions in West Virginia to his granddaughter. His story spans from the civil war era to the current labor movement in the state. Labor Union; West Virginia; Civil War labor movement; Great Uprising; General Strike; United Mine Workers of America; UMW; United Steel Workers.
Contact: Available as VHS or DVD, $5 from Labor in the Mountains Foundation, ILSR/WVU, 719 Knapp Hall, Morgantown WV 26506. Telephone: (304) 293-3323 Toll Free: 1-800-499-0486 Fax: (304) 293-3395
101m; U.K.
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Crissy Rock, Vladimir Vega and Sandie Lavelle
Synopsis (IMDB): This Ken Loach docu-drama relates the story of a British womanUs fight with Social Services over the care of her children. Maggie has a history of bouncing from one abusive relationship to another. She has four children, of four different fathers, who came to the attention of Social Services when they were injured in a fire. Subsequently, Maggie was found to be an “unfit mother” and her children were removed from her care. She finally meets the man of her dreams, a Paraguayan expatriate, and they start a family together. Unfortunately, Social Services seems unwilling to accept that her life has changed and rends them from their new children. She and Jorge together, and separately, fight Social Services, Immigration, and other government bureaucrats in a desperate battle to make their family whole again
71m; Palestine/Tunisia/Netherlands
Director: Rashid Masharawi
Cast: Mohammed Bakri, Areen Omari and Nour Zoubi
Synopsis (IMDB): Abu Laila used to be a judge, but because the government doesn’t have the means to renew his assignment he is forced to be a taxi driver. On the day his daughter Laila becomes seven years old his wife insists that he’ll be at home early and bring her a present and a cake. Abu Laila’s has nothing else on his mind then completing this mission. But the daily life in Palestine has other plans.
52m; Nepal
Director: Lucian Muntean, Natasa Stankovic
Cast: Hari Prasad Rai
Synopsis (IMDB): This is a story of a 17-year-old boy named Hari Rai, who lives in a small village in the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal, and his extraordinary journey. Hari is a student. However, he also works as a porter so that he could pay for his tuition and cover his living expenses. Although very young, he already has three years of experience carrying loads up and down the mountain, mostly tourists’ backpacks. This time, he gets a job to carry a huge red refrigerator from the top of the mountain, to the nearest town. We follow Hari Rai on his journey through the fascinating Himalayan landscapes, we discover Hari’s inner life, his thoughts, hopes and dreams and we also get to know the culture and the local people’s way of life in this region. We learn about their relation with the most important aspects of their lives: family, nature and religion. Out of 60,000 child porters in Nepal, Hari is one of the few lucky ones to have a chance of going to school. We can see what it takes for him to get his education.
Contact: http://www.lunamdocs.com/
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