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Category Archives: Immigrants/Immigration

Indentured (2010)

19 Mar

10m; U.S./Iraq

Director: Cy Kuckenbaker

Synopsis: “Indentured” investigates the living conditions of South Asian laborers working on US military bases in Iraq. Thousands of nameless workers, called “Third Country Nationals” because they’re neither American nor Iraqi, toil inside US bases in Iraq as food servers, custodians, construction workers and more. But unlike American contractors who often make six figure salaries in Iraq, these men typically make less than two dollars an hour. Nepalese custodians talk about the illegal broker’s fees they had to pay to get their jobs on the base. Inside a company-run camp a Nepalese supervisor explains how they are brought into Iraq against Nepalese and Iraqi law.

 
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Posted by on March 19, 2012 in Documentary, Global Economy, Immigrants/Immigration, Outsourcing, Politics, War

 

The Inheritance (1964)

19 Mar

58m; U.S.

Director: Harold Mayer and Lynne Rhodes Mayer

Synopsis: The Inheritance shows what life was really like for immigrants and working Americans from the turn of the century through the fight for civil rights in the 1960s. This stirring history of our country shows their struggle to put down roots, form labor unions, survive wars, and finally, create a new and better life for themselves and our nation.

Our film explores a landscape largely unknown to the present generation—the dim sweatshops, coal mines and textile mills filled with children; the anxious years of the depression and labor’s bloody struggle for the right to organize; the battlefields of WW I and II; the seldom seen newsreel footage of the Memorial Day massacre at The Republic Steel strike in Chicago; the civil rights struggle— as every generation fights again to preserve and extend its freedoms. This is the film’s theme.

Contact: The film is available in 4 parts on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWDPHQX0S0w

Harold Mayer and Lynne Rhodes Mayer

Harold Mayer Productions

New Milford, CT

 
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Posted by on March 19, 2012 in Available Online, Blacks, Children, Construction Trades, Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Organizing, Politics, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Working Class

 

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Housewarming (2005)

09 Mar

90m; Belguim

Director: Brigitte Roüan

Cast: Carole Bouquet, Jean-Pierre Castaldi and Didier Flamand

Synopsis (IMDB): Chantal, an advocate involved in defending homeless illegal immigrant, decides to refurbish her flat. Following her convictions she calls Columbian workers led by an unforeseeable architect. In the mean time a former client decides he is in love with her, her son and daughter are becoming nearly homeless since the flat’s walls are demolished, the architect has new plans every day, an irregular workers fall in love with Chantal too and dance with her daughter, Martin (the son) still continue to roller blade around… Could the works go forward in this mess

 
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Posted by on March 9, 2012 in Comedy, Immigrants/Immigration, Romance, Working Class

 

Frozen River (2008)

01 Mar

97m; U.S.

Director: Courtney Hunt

Cast:  Melissa Leo, Misty Upham and Charlie McDermott

Synopsis (IMDB): Takes place in the days before Christmas near a little-known border crossing on the Mohawk reservation between New York State and Quebec. Here, the lure of fast money from smuggling presents a daily challenge to single moms who would otherwise be earning minimum wage. Two women – one white, one Mohawk, both single mothers faced with desperate circumstances – are drawn into the world of border smuggling across the frozen water of the St. Lawrence River. Ray and Lila – and a New York State Trooper as opponent in an evolving cat-and-mouse game

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Women, Working Class

 

From the Other Side (2002)

01 Mar

92m; U.S.

Director: Chantal Ackerman

Synopsis: Immigrant workers.

Contact: First Run Icarus Films. http://www.frif.com/new2002/other.html

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration

 

Green Card (2004)

01 Mar

75m; 

Director: Brutus Sirucha

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Immigrants/Immigration

 

Hands of Harvest

01 Mar

Directr: Adrian Muys

Synopsis/Contact:  This is Adrian Muys writing, the filmmaker you met at the AFI. Here is a short summary of Hands of Harvest and how the AFL-CIO would fit into it. Hands of Harvest chronicles the journey of a group of Mexican women who travel on work visas from the Hidalgo region to the Eastern Shore of Maryland to pick crabs in seafood plants. The film focuses on the H2-B visa program and how it has impacted the culture of both a small Maryland fishing village and a remote hamlet in Mexico. What I would like to interview someone at the AFL-CIO about it their stance on visa workers and how it has affected the American work force. Hands of Harvest is about workers, both American and Mexican, who will go to great lengths to support their families and uphold traditions and I have always taken an unbiased approach to the film in order to get as many opinions as possible about a subject that is very important at this moment in US labor history. I think having the opinion of the AFL-CIO would widen the scope of the film and bring another important point of view to the table. Please call me if you have any questions about the film: (917) 743-3714 Thanks Adrian Muys Chapel Cove Productions adrianmuys@yahoo.com

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Global Economy, Immigrants/Immigration

 

Harvest of Shame (1960)

01 Mar

60m; U.S.

Director: Palmer Williams

Synopsis: From the CBS reports series, this film is a comprehensive report on the problems of migratory fame workers in the US, showing the conditions under which they lie and work.

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Farm & Food, Immigrants/Immigration

 

La Haine (Hate) [1995]

01 Mar

98m; France

Director: Mathieu Kassovitz

Cast: Vincent Cassel, Hubert Koundé and Saïd Taghmaoui

Synopsis: Abdel, a local hoodlum, is hospitalized after a riot, where a policeman lost his gun. His friend Vinz finds it and claims he will kill a cop if Abdel dies.  3 young emigres in Paris, a Jew, and African & a Middle-Easterner.

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Working Class

 

Hester Street (1975)

01 Mar

90m; U.S.

Director: Joan Micklin Silver

Cast: Steven Keats, Carol Kane and Mel Howard

Synopsis: It’s 1896. Yankel Bogovnik, a Russian Jew, emigrated to the United States three years earlier and has settled where many of his background have, namely on Hester Street on the Lower East Side of New York City. He has assimilated to American life, having learned English, anglicized his name to Jake, and shaved off his beard. He is working at a $12/week job as a seamster, the money earned to be able to bring his wife Gitl and his son Yossele to America from Russia. Regardless, he has fallen in love with another woman, a dancer named Mamie Fein. Nonetheless, he is excited when he learns that Gitl and Yossele are indeed coming to America. His happiness at their arrival is dampened when he sees that Gitl is not “American” looking like Mamie and has troubles assimilating as quickly as he would like. Except to Mamie, he tries to show a public façade that everything is fine at home with Gitl. But can their marriage survive these differences, and if not, will Gitl be able to manage in this new land where she has few supports?

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Women, Working Class

 
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