RSS

Category Archives: Legal System

The Story of America

23 Jun

The Story of America is a unique project to both document the story of our divided nation in 2013, and engage those with the power to heal these divisions – the people – in the transforming power of storytelling and dialogue.  We are focusing particular attention to the Moral Monday movement and the political struggle in North Carolina for the feature documentary. The fight here involves many fundamental divisions in America including election laws/voting rights, influence of money in politics, the role of government in our lives, racial divisions, demographic shifts, and economic policies/income inequality. In North Carolina, we see a story of a state and its people that is dramatically divided, yet yearning for a sense of unity and hope. We hope that our videos, screenings and discussions may contribute to healing the divide.

Directed by: Annabelle Park and Eric Byler

http://www.storyofamerica.org/

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on June 23, 2014 in Documentary, Labor History, Legal System, Politics

 

Tags: , ,

Dandarin labor standards inspectors (2013 TV show)

01 Nov

A new TV drama series featuring labor inspectors and their work started broadcasting in Japan in 2013. This is the first time ever in Japanese TV drama history. The first episode concerns a “bad employer” who harasses workers and refuses to pay overtime. In recent years, people often talk about “black companies” that squeeze everything out of their employees, and that may be why the TV company thought this kind of show could attract audience.

In any case, we are hoping that young students will watch this TV and that the number of applications for an exam to become a labor inspector (which is a relatively obscure profession at the moment, to be honest) will increase. Unfortunately the series has not been translated from Japanese.

Info: http://www.ntv.co.jp/dandarin/
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgeD5LSXJhE

Post by Kayo Rokumoto kayo.rokumoto@mofa.go.jp

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on November 1, 2013 in Legal System, Safety & Health, Whistleblowers, White Collar

 

Compliance (2012)

30 Aug

90m; U.S.

Director: Craig Zobel

Cast: Ann Dowd, Dreama Walker and Pat Healy

Synopsis: “In the middle of a bad day Sandra (Ann Dowd), the harried manager of a fast-food franchise, receives a phone call from a man claiming to be a police officer. He accuses an employee named Becky (Dreama Walker) of theft and instructs Sandra to subject the pretty teenager to a series of humiliations: detain her in the stock room, confiscate her belongings, conduct a strip search and on and on. As the title suggests, at each step of this increasingly elaborate and unnerving hoax, Sandra and Becky do what they are told.”

–‘Compliance’ Raises Questions About Human Behavior; NYT 8/10/2012

Trailer

 
1 Comment

Posted by on August 30, 2012 in Big Business/Corporations, Class, Consumerism, Drama, Legal System, Netflix Watch Instantly, Service Workers, Women

 

Hot Coffee (2011)

13 Jul

86m; U.S.

Director: Susan Saldoff 

Synopsis: Seinfeld mocked it. Letterman ranked it in his top ten list. And more than fifteen years later, its infamy continues. Everyone knows the McDonald’s coffee case. It has been routinely cited as an example of how citizens have taken advantage of America’s legal system, but is that a fair rendition of the facts?Hot Coffee reveals what really happened to Stella Liebeck, the Albuquerque woman who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonald’s, while exploring how and why the case garnered so much media attention, who funded the effort and to what end. After seeing this film, you will decide who really profited from spilling hot coffee.

Contact: http://www.hotcoffeethemovie.com/default.asp

Trailer

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on July 13, 2012 in Big Business/Corporations, Documentary, Legal System, Politics

 

The Gatekeeper (2002)

13 Jun

103m; U.S.

Director: John Carlos Frey

Cast: John Carlos Frey, Michelle Agnew and Anne Betancourt

Synopsis (IMDB): Adam Fields is a rage-filled U.S. Border Patrol Agent who often crosses the line in his job. A member of a vigilante group, Fields decides to go undercover with a hidden camera and cross with a group of undocumented immigrants. His plan goes awry, however, when the group is forced to work for a drug ring. Suddenly, Fields realizes that he has more in common with the migrants and their search for home, family and freedom than he thought.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Legal System, Migrant workers

 

Tags: ,

Up the Ridge (2007)

13 Jun

55m; U.S.

Director: Nick Szuberla and Amelia Kirby

Synopsis: In 1999 Szuberla and Kirby were volunteer DJ’s for the Appalachian region’s only hip-hop radio program in Whitesburg, KY when they received hundreds of letters from inmates transferred into nearby Wallens Ridge, the region’s newest prison built to prop up the shrinking coal economy. The letters described human rights violations and racial tension between staff and inmates. Filming began that year and, though the lens of Wallens Ridge State Prison, the program offers viewers an in-depth look at the United States prison industry and the social impact of moving hundreds of thousands of inner-city minority offenders to distant rural outposts. The film explores competing political agendas that align government policy with human rights violations, and political expediencies that bring communities into racial and cultural conflict with tragic consequences. Connections exist, in both practice and ideology, between human rights violations in Abu Ghraib and physical and sexual abuse recorded in American prisons.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Legal System

 

Tags:

Second Chances – Union Made (2008)

07 May

55m; U.S.

Director: Kelly Candaele

Synopsis: Follows union members who came out of street gangs and prison into the building trades unions and as a result changed their lives

Contact: kcandaele@sbcglobal.net 323-547-1183 (Cell)

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Construction Trades, Documentary, Legal System, Working Class

 

Sounder (1972)

07 May

105m; U.S.

Director: Martin Ritt

Cast: Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield and Kevin Hooks

Synopsis (IMDB): The Morgans, a loving and strong family of Black sharecroppers in Louisiana in 1933, face a serious family crisis when the husband and father, Nathan Lee Morgan, is convicted of a petty crime and sent to a prison camp. After some weeks or months, the wife and mother, Rebecca Morgan, sends the oldest son, who is about 11 years old, to visit his father at the camp. The trip becomes something of an odyssey for the boy. During the journey he stays a little while with a dedicated Black schoolteacher.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Blacks, Drama, Farm & Food, Labor History, Legal System, Working Class

 

Spare Parts (2003)

07 May

87m; Italy

Director: Damjan Kozole

Cast: Peter Musevski, Aljosa Kovacic and Primoz Petkovsek

Synopsis (IMDB): Embittered widower, Ludvik, spends his nights transporting illegal refugees in his van from Croatia, across Slovenia, and into Italy. The young and inexperienced Rudi acts as his helpmate. Together they become a well-trained duo who almost every night convey “spare parts” to Italy. Of course the story of their illegitimate exports into Europe ends tragically, for everyone. The whole idea of this account is that everyone – including ourselves – is looking for happiness: the “spare parts” because of the misery they are plunged into without, and our characters because they can’t find it inside

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Legal System, Migrant workers

 

Sweet Sixteen (2002)

07 May

106m; U.K.

Director: Ken Loach

Cast: Martin Compston, Michelle Coulter and Annmarie Fulton

Synopsis: Liam is a young, restless teen struggling to realize his dream in the gritty and dismal streets of Greenock, where unemployment is rampant and little hope is available to the city’s youth. He is waiting for the release of his mother, Jean, from prison where she is completing a prison term for a crime that her boyfriend actually committed. Her boyfriend, Stan, is a crude and obnoxious drug pusher is partnered by Liam’s equally rough and foul-mouthed, mean-spirited grandfather. Liam is determined to rescue his mother from both of them, which means creating a safe haven beyond their reach. But first he’s got to raise the cash–no small feat for a young man It’s not long before Liam and his pals’ crazy schemes lead them into all sorts of trouble. Finding himself dangerously out of his depth, Liam knows he should walk away. Only this time, he just can’t let go

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Drama, Legal System, Working Class

 
← Older posts
Newer posts →