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Category Archives: Immigrants/Immigration

Eat Sleep Die

19 Nov

2012
Directed by Gabriela Pichler
Sweden
104 mins

Nermina Lukac’s electrifying performance as Raša is the heart of director Gabriela Pichler’s feature debut. A Montenegrin-born young woman living in rural Sweden, Raša is laid off from her job at a food-packing plant. Her ensuing job search pulls us through the maze of limited prospects and frustrating bureaucracy facing the country’s working immigrant population. Affable, resilient, street smart and soft-hearted, Raša’s natural magnetism draws us in completely. We feel every ounce of her disappointment, fear and elation as she soldiers on, looking for work. An Audience Award winner at the Venice Film Festival, EAT SLEEP DIE’s assured naturalism and political conviction single out Pichler as a bold, exciting new cinematic voice. Her film is a positive rallying cry for low-wage workers who dream of a life that won’t merely add up to the three verbs that form the film’s title.
– Mike Dougherty, American Film Institute 

 
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Posted by on November 19, 2014 in Class, Comedy, Discrimination: Racism, Sexism, etc, Drama, Farm & Food, Immigrants/Immigration, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Legal System, Unemployment-Wages, Women, Working Class

 

All Points North

17 Jul

Documentary (Athens/ London 2013, 25 minutes)
Producer: BlueArts Film, Mizgin Müjde Arslan, Dir: Therese Koppe
Original Language: French, with English subtitles.
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“It certainly will be a different Europe, not like here in Greece”, states Laurent in an assuring voice. The dream of heading North is the driving motivation for Laurent and Ibrahim, two young men leaving their country of Senegal in search of a better life.As undocumented migrants, they find themselves trapped in Greece, bound to the Greek borders by the lack of immigration papers. Before leaving their homeland their impressions of Europe were very different from the harsh realities they faced once arriving. For migrants such as Laurent and Ibrahim, there is no stability in a better, safer land; their journeys to find such are continually ongoing.

 
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Posted by on July 17, 2014 in Blacks, Discrimination: Racism, Sexism, etc, Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration, Migrant workers

 

Tala

29 Jun

Tala is a young Filipino domestic worker living with a bourgeois family on the north shore of Montreal. As she runs through her daily chores, dealing with the eccentricities of her employers, an unexpected phone call puts her at great risk of getting fired. Shot in a single long take and inspired by the current ‘Live-In Caregiver’ program of the Canadian federal government, ‘Tala’ tells a story of subtle oppression and re-empowerment.

Directed by: Pier-Phillippe Chevigny

https://vimeo.com/63939334

 
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Posted by on June 29, 2014 in Class, Global Economy, Immigrants/Immigration, Service Workers

 

El Camino

25 Jun

‘El Camino’ follows the path of the anonymous migrant in search of the New World. The journey leads to exploitation and raises the questions of culpability and complicity of both society and of the immigrant who crosses the political line in the sand. Economic pressures from both sides of the border are catalysts for migration. Demands for cheap labor generate ‘illegal’ immigration, which has become the polarizing, hot button issue du jour. This parable is a metaphor for the reality faced by migrants arriving in strange, new lands every day.

Directed by: Raquel Tresvant

http://cargocollective.com/zeligfilms

 
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Posted by on June 25, 2014 in Immigrants/Immigration, Migrant workers

 

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Cesar’s Last Fast

25 Jun

In the summer of 1988 Cesar Chavez, then 61 years old, embarked on a water ¬only fast – a personal act of penance for not having done enough to stop growers from spraying toxic pesticides on farm workers. For more than a month no one, including Cesar, knew when he would eat again. Structured around dramatic never-before-seen footage, this film focuses on the story of how Chavez organized America’s poorest, least educated workers, built a movement that successfully challenged our nation’s powerful agribusiness, and launched the modern day Latino civil rights movement in the U.S. Motivated by Catholic social teaching, Chavez risked his life in pursuit economic justice for America’s most vulnerable workforce.

Directed by: Richard Ray Perez, Lorena Parlee

http://cesarslastfast.com/

 
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Posted by on June 25, 2014 in Farm & Food, Immigrants/Immigration, Labor History, Migrant workers

 

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One Generation’s Time: The Story of Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes

23 Jun

On June 1,1981,Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes, two reform officers in Seattle’s Alaska Cannery Workers’ Union, Local 37 of the (ILWU), were gunned down as they worked in the union offices. The men were attempting to reform the union and were calling for better working conditions in the canneries. On the surface, their murders were meant to look like just another gang-related slaying. But later, the killings were revealed to be a hit originating from the Marcos regime. Silme and Gene’s friends, families and colleagues sought justice for the murders, and continued the fight for equality for the months and years to come. This touching and powerful film details the murders, the fight for fair labor conditions, the civil rights movement the murdered men helped foster, and the ensuing efforts to seek justice for their killings.

Directed by: Shannon Gee

 
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Posted by on June 23, 2014 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Farm & Food, Immigrants/Immigration, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Labor History, Manufacturing, Organizing, Service Workers

 

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Grace

23 Jun

Grace is about the daily obstacles and dangers of living in America as an undocumented worker. Grace is a woman, a mother and an immigrant with everything to lose except her faith in someone from her past. She gives a face to the faceless, those who work tirelessly behind the scenes of our families and our nation.

Directed by: Alrick Brown, from a story by Julian Pimiento

http://gracethefilm.wordpress.com/

 
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Posted by on June 23, 2014 in Cities-Urban, Class, Discrimination: Racism, Sexism, etc, Immigrants/Immigration, Legal System, Women

 

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Der Stuhl (The Chair)

03 Feb

(Daniel Martín Gómez, 2013, 14 min) Two women job seekers who emigrated to Germany, from different ends of Spain and two generations facing two very different ways of emigrating.

 
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Posted by on February 3, 2014 in Cities-Urban, Global Economy, Immigrants/Immigration, Labor History, Themes, Women, Working Class

 

Mujeres Pa’lante [Women Moving Forward]

21 Jan

Image

2012
Directed by: Tanja Wol Sorensen
Documentary Short  (27 minutes)

There are more than 500,000 domestic workers living in Spain today. The large majority are migrant women from Latin American countries. Through the stories of three Latin American women living in Barcelona, we get an insight into the reality of being a migrant woman and a domestic worker in Spain today. Through their own words, we learn about their motivations for crossing oceans to live in Catalonia, and why they choose to keep living outside of their native country. Despite the discrimination and abuse they experience, these women are actively trying to improve the rights and conditions for themselves and for others.

 
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Posted by on January 21, 2014 in Documentary, Global Economy, Immigrants/Immigration, Service Workers, Women

 

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Money and Honey (2011)

21 Jan

Image

Directed by: Jasmine Ching-Hui Lee
Documentary Feature (96 Minutes)

This is an Asian epic documentary on migrant workers spanning thirteen years. Director Jasmine first came into contact with Filipino caretakers in the Taipei nursing home, where her grandparents were under care. Living away from their loved ones, both the Filipino caretakers and the elderly residents suffer from homesickness. Stories of joy and sorrow take place between them. The Filipino caretakers are humorous. They comfort themselves by singing a self-mocking song, ‘No money, no honey’. Being a wife, a mother and a migrant worker, the Filipino women are smart. They know how to survive. And yet, the road home seems to grow longer and longer. What price do they have to pay for love and livelihood? Can their dreams ever come true?

 
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Posted by on January 21, 2014 in Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration, Service Workers, Women

 

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