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Category Archives: Labor History

Tales From The Long Memory (2020)

04 Jan

54 minutes


Folk singing rabble-rouser U. Utah Phillips crisscrossed the country on freight trains searching for teachers. He experienced ultimate freedom, no home ahead and none behind but also the works of mercy. He discovered the dynamic struggle of people to organize themselves and demand a quality of life for themselves and those around them that provides bread, yes, but roses too.

Tales From the Long Memory follows the people who look to Utah as their teacher now while they continue the work that inspired him throughout his life. In Detroit, the Wobbly Kitchen shows how the simple act of feeding someone can spark a community of solidarity in a city struggling to rebuild its glory. In Madison, the sweet sounds of labor songs echo through the capital building every day at noon. In Portland, the Sisters of the Road Café serve up dignity and nourishment at a price you can afford. And in a quaint northern California gold rush town, a dedicated group of community members grow an idea into a house of hospitality called Utah’s Place.

Watch on Eventive at WUFF

 
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Posted by on January 4, 2025 in 2025 Shortlist, A: New/Just Added, Arts/Culture, Documentary, Labor History, Musical

 

Ida B. Wells: A Passion For Justice (1989)

04 Jan

54min

Documents the dramatic life and turbulent times of the pioneering African American journalist, activist, suffragist and anti-lynching crusader of the post-Reconstruction period. Though virtually forgotten today, Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a household name in Black America during much of her lifetime (1863-1931) and was considered the equal of her well-known African American contemporaries such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois.

IDA B. WELLS: A PASSION FOR JUSTICE documents the dramatic life and turbulent times of the pioneering African American journalist, activist, suffragist and anti-lynching crusader of the post-Reconstruction period. Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison reads selections from Wells’ memoirs and other writings in this winner of more than 20 film festival awards.

“Tells of the brave life and works of the 19th century journalist, known among Black reporters as ‘the princess of the press,’ who led the nation’s first anti-lynching campaign.” – New York Times

“A powerful account of the life of one of the earliest heroes in the Civil Rights Movement…The historical record of her achievements remains relatively modest. This documentary goes a long way towards rectifying that egregious oversight.” – Chicago Sun-Times

Director

 
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Posted by on January 4, 2025 in A: New/Just Added, Arts/Culture, Communications, Documentary, Labor History, Women

 

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Miss Marx (2020)

04 Jan

1h 47m
Bright and passionate, Eleanor links feminism and socialism. Partaking in workers’ battles, she fights for women’s rights and against child labor. Meeting Edward Aveling in 1883, her life is overtaken by a tragic love affair
Director

“L’Internationale” by Downtown Boys, from the film MISS MARX

 
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Posted by on January 4, 2025 in A: New/Just Added, Collective Bargaining, Communism/Socialism, Drama, Labor History, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Women

 

Haymarket: The Bomb, The Anarchists, The Labor Struggle (2021)

04 Jan

1h 25m

The Chicago Haymarket tragedy, where a bomb thrown into the ranks of Police was followed by an eruption of panic and violence resulting in a trial and execution of presumably innocent workers’ rights activists, is examined in this feature documentary film. Expert historians and professors present the history of the bomb, the anarchist movement of the 19th century, and the labor struggle of working people fighting for a shorter work day during the industrial might of America’s Gilded Age.

Adrian Prawica @ FILMADRIA

Director | Executive Producer | www.filmadria.com

773-724-0867 | 847-894-3849 – Direct

filmadria@gmail.com | IMDB Profile

HAYMARKET: The Bomb, The Anarchists, The Labor Struggle – Labor Goes To The Movies talks with director Adrian Prawica

 
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Posted by on January 4, 2025 in A: New/Just Added, Documentary, Labor History, Organizing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Working Class

 

Unrest (2022) Original title: Unrueh

04 Jan

1h 33m

In late 19th century Switzerland, a factory worker becomes involved with a local group of anarchist watchmakers.


‘Unrest’ Review: The Times Are Not A-Changin’

 
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Posted by on January 4, 2025 in A: New/Just Added, Automation, Communism/Socialism, Drama, Experimental, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Labor History, Working Class

 

Fight Like Hell: The Testimony of Mother Jones (2023)

18 Jan

Julia de Guzman
julia@jdgstudio.com

We were never supposed to know her name. She was a poor Irish immigrant who survived famine and war, fire and plague. Unable to save her husband or their four small children, she dedicated her life to saving working families everywhere. The robber barons called her “the most dangerous woman in America,” but workers called her “Mother Jones.”

Upton Sinclair said of her, “she had force, she had wit, she had the fire of indignation; she was the walking wrath of god.” Mother Jones said of herself “I’m not a humanitarian, I’m a hellraiser.” Most famously, she told her followers to, “pray for the Dead and fight like hell for the living.” She educated, agitated, and organized the dispossessed and showed America what it could be. 

With the gap between the rich and poor growing wider by the day, the just and democratic society Mother Jones fought for is under attack. Her hour has come again. It is time that her story and the fierce struggles of working families are brought back to life.

Drawn from her autobiography, letters, speeches, and interviews, FIGHT LIKE HELL is as bold and forceful as Mother Jones herself. Adapted from Obie Award-winning Actress Kaiulani Lee’s one-woman play “Can’t Scare Me,” FIGHT LIKE HELL was written and performed by Lee and directed by Emmy-nominated and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Ian Cheney.

 
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Posted by on January 18, 2023 in Labor History, Women

 

Her Socialist Smile (2020)

14 Jan

John Gianvito assembles Keller’s political addresses and writings into a portrait of a warrior for social justice and a passionate, insightful proselytizer of Marxist thought.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13152604/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

NYFF Review: Helen Keller’s Political Life Gets Illuminated in Her Socialist Smile
 
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Posted by on January 14, 2023 in Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Labor History, Women

 

1970

14 Jan

71 mins | 2021

Director: Tomasz Wolski

Producer: Anna Gawlita

Subtitle: English

In the days leading up to Christmas 1970, the Polish government raised the prices of food and consumer goods, prompting worker strikes and public demonstrations. In response, the Communist regime ordered the police and military to intervene and suppress the protests, which resulted in violent clashes, thousands of arrests, and the deaths of over 40 demonstrators. Director Tomasz Wolski brings the tragic sequence of decisions and their ramifications to life in a compelling and stylized pastiche of archival footage, stop-motion animation, puppetry, and recordings of government officials’ conversations. Bold and bracing, the film interweaves multiple visual styles and stories to suspenseful effect as the tension between the public and the government unfolds in black-and-white streets and moody dioramas. With chilling contemporary resonances, 1970 captures the politics of power and intimidation—how both are deployed by authority figures when they are confronted by the forces of civil unrest and a fear of their own citizens. TM

 
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Posted by on January 14, 2023 in Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Labor History

 

9to5: The Story of a Movement

27 Jan

2020 1h 29min | Documentary | 1 February 2021 (USA)

They couldn’t kill their bosses, so they did the next best thing—they organized.

When Dolly Parton sang “9 to 5,” she was doing more than just shining a light on the fate of American working women. Parton was singing the true story of a movement that started with 9to5, a group of Boston secretaries in the early 1970s. Their goals were simple—better pay, more advancement opportunities, and an end to sexual harassment—but their unconventional approach attracted the press and shamed their bosses into change. Featuring interviews with 9to5’s founders, as well as actor and activist Jane Fonda, 9to5: The Story of a Movement is the previously untold story of the fight that inspired a hit and changed the American workplace.

Film website Director: Julia Reichert
julia@donet.com

 
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Posted by on January 27, 2021 in A: Highly Recommended Labor Films, A: New/Just Added, Discrimination: Racism, Sexism, etc, Documentary, Labor History, Women, Working Class

 

The Great Strike 1917

05 Oct

Trailer
70 minutes.

Documentary about events which shaped Australian society and the labor movement for a century and beyond.

Synopsis
Thousands had stopped work, the government recruited volunteers to break the strike, allowing them to bear arms; unions were deregistered and union leaders charged with conspiracy. It was a time of violent emotions, state violence and individual acts of violence by and against strikers. A striker was shot and killed. A filmmaker had his film embargoed. It was Sydney, 1917.

The world was in the grip of “The Great War”. Rail and tram employees had been forced to work longer hours, with reduced wages and conditions. With the introduction of a new American ‘timecard’ system, tramway and railway workers in inner Sydney walked off the job in protest, triggering the strike.

The stoppage became the biggest industrial upheaval Australia has seen before or since. At its height the strike stopped coastal shipping, mining, stevedoring and transport, and involved tens of thousands of workers in Australia’s eastern states.

Despite being a crushing defeat at the time, it had lasting consequences for the Australian labor movement. It was 100 years ago, but personal stories rarely spoken about were to filter through, reflecting on both the trauma and the positive legacy of the event, which still strongly resonate today.

WEBSITE

Mandy King
cavadini@tpg.com.au
M: 0410 633 503

 
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Posted by on October 5, 2019 in A: New/Just Added, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Labor History, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Transportation, Working Class

 
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