89m; Italy
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Contact: Totò, Ninetto Davoli and Femi Benussi
Synopsis: Humorous jaunt of working class young man and father to the big city accompanied by a crow who talks revolution and whom they eventually kill and eat.
Category Archives: Communism/Socialism
The Hawks and the Sparrows (Uccellacci e uccellini) [1966]
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Children, Communism/Socialism, Drama, Experimental, Philosophy
Viva Zapata! (1952)
113m; U.S.
Director: Elia Kazan
Cast: Marlon Brando, Jean Peters and Anthony Quinn
Synopsis (IMDB): In 1909, Emiliano Zapata, a well-born but penniless Mexican Indian from a remote province, Morelos, comes to Mexico City to complain that their arable land has been enclosed, leaving them only in the barren hills. His expressed dissatisfaction with the response of the President Diaz puts him in danger, and when he rashly rescues a prisoner from the local militia he becomes an outlaw. Urged on by a strolling intellectual, Fernando, he supports the exiled Don Francisco Madero against Diaz, and becomes the leader of his forces in the South as Pancho Villa is in the North. Diaz flees, and Madero takes his place; but he is a puppet president, in the hands of the leader of the army, Huerta, who has him assassinated when he tries to express solidarity for the men who fought for him. Zapata and Villa return to arms, and, successful in victory, seek to find a leader for the country. Unwillingly, Zapata takes the job.
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Communism/Socialism, Drama, Farm & Food, Labor History, War
Winstanley (1975)
95m; U.K.
Director: Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo
Cast: Miles Halliwell, Jerome Willis and Terry Higgins
Synopsis: Dramatized history of a Reformation-era religious sect called the Diggers. A nonviolent aggregation, the Diggers are devoted to tilling the soil that has been neglected by the British bluebloods. It isn’t long before the landowners send their minions to burn out and kill the Diggers.
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Communism/Socialism, Drama, Farm & Food, Labor History
Witness To Revolution, The Story of Anna Louise Strong (1984)
27m; U.S.
Director: Lucy Ostrander
Synopsis: This film contains the history of the 1919 Seattle General Strike in the context of the life of Anna Louise Strong, a partisan and a journalist, who reported on the strike and also on the Everett, Washington Massacre, which also took place in the same year. The film provides a close up look at why the strike took place and how it affected the working people of Seattle and the world.
Contact: http://www.stourwater.com/
View Online here: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/witness_to_revolution
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Available Online, Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Labor History, Organizing, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Women
Tags: Journalism, Strikebreaking
The Wobblies (1979)
89m; U.S.
Directors: Stewart Bird, Deborah Shaffer
Synopsis: Documentary chronicling the history of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), including interviews with many former Wobblies who were in their seventies, eighties, and nineties when the film was made.
“Solidarity! All for One and One for All!” Founded in Chicago in 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) took to organizing unskilled workers into one big union and changed the course of American history. This compelling documentary of the IWW (or “The Wobblies” as they were known) tells the story of workers in factories, sawmills, wheat fields, forests, mines and on the docks as they organize and demand better wages, healthcare, overtime pay and safer working conditions. In some respects, men and women, Black and white, skilled and unskilled workers joining a union and speaking their minds seems so long ago, but in other ways, the film mirrors today’s headlines, depicting a nation torn by corporate greed. Filmmakers Deborah Shaffer and Stewart Bird weave history, archival film footage, interviews with former workers (now in their 80s and 90s), cartoons, original art, and classic Wobbly songs (many written by Joe Hill) to pay tribute to the legacy of these rebels who paved the way and risked their lives for the many of the rights that we still have today. Restored by the Museum of Modern Art and recently inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Labor History
The Women of Summer (1986)
55m; U.S.
Director: Suzanne Bauman, Rita Heller
Synopsis (IMDB): A look at the controversial Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers of the 1920s and 1930s.
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Education, Women
The Blue Collar Worker and the Hairdresser in a Whirl of Sex and Politics (1996)
101m; Italy
Director: Lina Wertmüller
Cast: Tullio Solenghi, Gene Gnocchi and Veronica Pivetti
Synopsis (Amazon): It’s spontaneous combustion when Tunin meets Rossella at a victory rally the night of the hotly contested election. She’s a right wing pro-business zealot. He’s a leftist labor organizer whose libido shifts into overdrive the moment he sees the fiery Rossella. Tunin’s determined to seduce her, but Rossella conceives her own plan to deal with the self-centered Lothario. Only two obstacles stand in the way of a blissful union – their politics and his wife. Passion and politics run amok in this delightfully sexy farce, the latest from director Lina Wertmuller.
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Big Business/Corporations, Collective Bargaining, Comedy, Communism/Socialism, Organizing
Yellow Earth (1985)
89m; China
Director: Kaige Chen
Cast: Xueqi Wang, Bai Xue and Quiang Liu
Synopsis (IMDB): Yellow earth focuses on the story of a Communist soldier who is sent to the countryside to collect folk songs for the Communist Revolution. There he stays with a peasant family and learns that the happy songs he was sent to collect do not exist; the songs he finds are about hardship and suffering. He returns to the Army, but promises to come back for the young girl, Cuiqiao, who has been spellbound by his talk of the freedom women have under Communist rule and who wants to join the Communist Army.
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Communism/Socialism, Drama
Tags: Music
False Profits (2009)
48m
Director: AIDC & WWMP
Synopsis: The first documentary film for both organisations and it focuses on the current global economic crisis – its impact on the working class and the responses by trade unions, government and big business in South Africa. It includes interviews with leading trade unionists, workers, community members, NGO workers and academics. The film is decidedly leftwing and critical in its approach and attempts to explain the crisis in Marxist terms and poses serious questions about alternative responses to the crisis, that constantly impacts negatively on the working class and the world’s poor. Moreover, this current crisis is also ecological and renders capitalism unsustainable and a threat to life on Earth. – http://www.wwmp.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=518&Itemid=19
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Environment, Philosophy
The Trotsky (2009)
120m; Canada
Director: Jacob Tierney
Cast: Liane Balaban, Jay Baruchel and Taylor Baruchel
Synopsis: Leon Bronstein is a high school student in Montreal West who is absolutely convinced he is the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky. After leading a hunger strike with some of his fellow private school peers against his father, the owner of a textile factory who will not allow the workers to unionize, Leon is sent to public school. There he finds apathy, but also potential and begins to organize a student union, while also pursuing an older woman he is convinced he must marry. A very funny and smart film that includes a lot of genuine moments about the power of organizing, and a lot of jokes about labor and left-wing history.
Trailer
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 4, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Comedy, Communism/Socialism, Education, Labor History, Netflix Watch Instantly, Organizing, Romance, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts
THE LABOR FILM DATABASE 