30m; U.S.
Director: Barbara Wolf
Synopsis: Organizing in academia.
Contact: Michael Dembrow, PCC Faculty Federation, mdembrow@pcc.edu
Category Archives: Organizing
Sit Down and Fight: Walter Reuther and the Rise of the Auto Workers Union (1992)
55m; U.S.
Director: Charlotte Mitchell Zwerin
Synopsis: Chronicles the sit-down strikes that led to the growth of the United Auto Workers and the Reuther brothers rise to prominence.
Contact: PBS; WVLC has a VHS copy
Smoking Room (2002)
92m
Director: Roger Gual and Julio D. Wallovits
Cast: Miguel Ángel González, Francesc Orella and Francesc Garrido
Synopsis (IMDB): A combative office-worker is recollecting signatures. People are not allowed to smoke in the building, so he wants to ask the bosses to habilitate a smoking room. It seems logical and his colleagues praise the initiative. But actually what comes next reveals the fierce individualism, selfishness and cowardice that each one hide under their white collar.
Song of Strike (2001)
30m; South Korea
Director: Labor News Production
Synopsis: This series of videos tells the story of the Korean working class through music and footage of the struggle. This stirring video shows the soul of the Korean labor movement.
Standing on My Sisters’ Shoulders (2002)
61m; U.S.
Director: Laura J. Lipson
Synopsis (official website): The award-winning documentary “Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders” takes on the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi in the 1950’s and 60’s from the point of view of the courageous women who lived it – and emerged as its grassroots leaders. These women stood up and fought for the right to vote and the right to an equal education. They not only brought about change in Mississippi, but they altered the course of American history.
This documentary presents original interviews with many of the Civil Rights movement’s most remarkable women: Unita Blackwell, a sharecropper turned activist, who became Mississippi’s first female black mayor; Mae Bertha Carter, a mother of 13, whose children became the first to integrate the Drew County schools against dangerous opposition; white student activist Joan Trumpauer Mulholland who not only participated in sit-ins but took a stand on integration by attending an all black university; Annie Devine and Victoria Gray Adams, who, along with Fannie Lou Hamer, stepped up and challenged the Democratic Party and President Johnson at the 1964 Convention.
Contact: http://www.sisters-shoulders.org/film.html
Stories From The Mines (2004)
57m; U.S.
Director: Thomas M. Curr and Greg Matkosky
Synopsis: Stories from the Mines chronicles the struggle of these miners to earn a decent wage, alleviate dangerous working conditions, and gain respect. The perilous work the miners performed for extremely low pay laid the foundation for America’s Industrial Revolution and the modern labor movement. Great Strike of 1902; United Mine Workers; anthracite coal; strikes.
Contact: http://www.aptonline.org/catalog.nsf/GenreLookup/A561F47E25B2B94885256C440059138E http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=231727
Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town
59m; U.S.
Director: Micha X. Peled
Synopsis (IMDB): Documentary that follows events in Ashland, VA, over a one-year period, from the first stormy public hearing that galvanizes residents’ opposition until the Town Council takes a final vote on the proposed Wal-Mart Store. Highlights Wal-Mart as the icon of the Big Box Industry and the symbol of sprawl.
Strike (Strajk – Die Heldin von Danzig) [2006]
104m; Poland/Germany
Director: Volker Schlöndorff
Cast: Katharina Thalbach, Andrzej Chyra and Dominique Horwitz
Synopsis: Shows the beginnings of Poland’s Solidarity movement through the little-known figure of Anna Walentynowicz. The latest film from the director of The Tin Drum tells the true story of an ordinary woman who helped spark a revolution in Poland. Shipyard welder Agnieszka (Katharina Thalbach), concerned about dangerous working conditions, speaks up to no avail. After an accident kills several employees and their families are denied pension benefits, she steps up her activities, becoming a union leader and powerful adviser to Lech Walesa, laying the foundation for the Solidarity movement.
Contact: http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/home/default.asp
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