61m; U.S.
Director: Kathleen Laughlin & Don Morstad
Synopsis: Mexican migrant workers in Minnesota
Category Archives: Immigrants/Immigration
Mississippi Chicken (2007)
82m; U.S.
Director: John Fiege
Synopsis: Questions of race, workers’ rights and exploitation form the crux of this intriguing documentary about Latin American immigrants living in rural Mississippi, where poultry plants promise jobs but little else.
Contact: http://www.mississippichicken.com/contact.asp
Moi et mon Blanc (2003)
90m; Burkina Faso/France
Director: S. Pierre Yameogo
Cast: Serge Bayala, Pierre-Loup Rajot and Anne Roussel
Synopsis (IMDB): Mamadi is struggling to complete a doctorate at a Parisian university after the government of his country has stopped paying his scholarship. Thanks to his acquaintances in the African community, he finds a job as night watchman in an underground car park. There, a French colleague, Franck, helps the friendly African academic getting around. However, the car park is also a meeting point for dubious characters, and when Mamadi accidentally wrecks a drug trafficking operation, Franck is really hard-pressed to put his pal and himself out of harm’s way. Wouldn’t Mamadi’s home country be the ideal place to escape the gangsters’ wrath
The Molly Maguires (1970)
124m; U.S.
Director: Martin Ritt
Cast: Sean Connery, Richard Harris and Samantha Eggar
Synopsis (IMDB): Life is rough in the coal mines of 1876 Pennsylvania. A secret group of Irish emigrant miners, known as the Molly Maguires, fights against the cruelty of the mining company with sabotage and murder. A detective, also an Irish emigrant, is hired to infiltrate the group and report on its members. But on which side do his sympathies lie?
Morristown: In The Air and Sun
60m; U.S.
Director: Anne Lewis
Synopsis: Making the connections between immigration and the global economy In this hour-long documentary, director Ann Lewis chronicles nearly a decade of change in Morristown, Tennessee, through interviews with displaced or low-wage Southern workers, Mexican immigrants, and workers and families impacted by globalization. The film shows how working-class people in Mexico and eastern Tennessee are caught in the throes of massive economic change, challenging their assumptions about work, family, nation and community. “Morristown” is in Spanish and English with subtitles
Movin’ On (1968)
60m; U.S.
Director: Harold Meyer
Synopsis: This roaring railroad film (1968) reveals the incredible history of railroading from the 1830s until today. The Hell on Wheels towns, the Chinese and Irish immigrants building a railroad with their sweat and brawn but battling each other along the way, the robber barons and their union busting, Mr. Pullman and his Pullman car, the glitter of the “golden age”, Eugene V. Debs, the glory days of the passenger trains of the 1930s and 40s.
The New Americans
Director: Gordon Quinn
USA, Kartemquin/PBS Independent Lens, 2004 (411 minutes)
Synopsis: Interweaves stories of immigrants & refugees
https://www.kartemquin.com/films/the-new-americans/about
Contact: Gordon cel: cel 773-339-7692 773-235-0816, and Kartemquin, 773-472-4366.
The New Americans follows four years in the lives of a diverse group of contemporary immigrants and refugees as they journey to start new lives in America. We follow an Indian couple to Silicon Valley through the dot-com boom and bust. A Mexican meatpacker struggles to reunite his family in rural Kansas. Two families of Nigerian refugees (including the sister of slain Ogoni activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa) escape government persecution. Two Los Angeles Dodgers prospects follow their big dreams of escaping the barrios of the Dominican Republic. A Palestinian woman who marries into a new life in Chicago only to discover in the wake of September 11, she cannot leave behind the pain of her homeland’s conflict.
Kartemquin assembled a team of talented directors including the creators of Hoop Dreams, Who Killed Vincent Chin, and Vietnam, Long Time Coming. The detailed portraits that resulted were woven into a seven-hour miniseries that presents a kaleidoscopic picture of immigrant life and a first impression of the U.S. that few born in America can imagine.
New Harvest, Old Shame (1990)
57m; U.S.
Director: Hector Galan
Synopsis (IMDB): A sequel to Edward R. Murrow’s famous Harvest of Shame documentary, showing the deplorable conditions of migrant farm workers in 1960, found little has changed in 30 years.
The New Los Angeles (2007)
55m; U.S.
Director: Lyn Goldfarb
Synopsis: A powerful portrait of a city transformed by immigration, race and labor.
Contact: Patricia Aufderheide
Nightsongs (1983)
116m; U.S.
Director: Marva Nabili
Cast: Victor Wong, Ida F.O. Chung and Mei Bo Kwong
Synopsis: Immigrant worklife in NYC’s Chinatown (directed by an immigrant).
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