63m; U.S.
Director: Joanne Grant
Synopsis: FUNDI: THE STORY OF ELLA BAKER reveals the instrumental role that Ella Baker played in shaping the American civil rights movement, such as helping to launch the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The dynamic activist was affectionately known as the Fundi, a Swahili word for a person who passes skills from one generation to another.
Contact: First Run Icarus Film (http://www.frif.com/cat97/f-j/fundi45.html)
166m; France
Director: Claude Berri
Cast: Renaud, Gérard Depardieu and Miou-Miou
Synopsis: Gerard Depardieu plays the role of Toussaint Maheu from the film version of Emile Zola’s landmark book by the same name. He attempts to organize the coal miners to resist exploitation by the owners. The novel was one of the first to properly, using the finest art and understanding, to show the lives of working men and women. The film version was not shown widely, perhaps due to its theme and its length. John Sayles film “Matewan” is not based on this novel/film, but has many similarities. There were earlier versions including a British mini-series in 1970, and films in 1963, and 1913.
86m; U.S.
Director: Haskell Wexler
Synopsis: In this extraordinary video, Academy Award-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler records the several-year-long struggle of the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union (BRU) to win better service and to challenge the race and class bias in city spending priorities. At 86 minutes, it’s long for classroom use and drags in a few places for many high school students; but what a rich documentary this is. At the outset, Kikanza Ramsey, a young BRU organizer, explains that the union is “a political, social experiment to see if we can build a multiracial, bilingual, gender-balanced mass movement of working class people that is willing to fight for a set of demands that challenges corporate capital.” And this is not mere rhetoric. The remainder of the film brings her words to life, revealing the twists and turns, highs and lows of this struggle as seen through the eyes of participants.
89m; Australia
Director: Lezli-An Barrett
Synopsis (IMDB): After seeing her husband fail in fighting a battle to keep his factory open, a manageress loses her job in a disagreement with the manager over sexual harassment of her staff. She accepts the advice of her father and joins his son, a left-wing organizer, and takes her plight to the union.
60m; South Africa
Director:
Synopsis: Documentary detailing labor strikes by South African unions against the apartheid regime.
127m; U.S.
Director: Michael Moore
Synopsis: On the 20-year anniversary of his groundbreaking masterpiece “Roger & Me,” Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” comes home to the issue he’s been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans. But this time the culprit is much bigger than General Motors, and the crime scene is far wider than Flint, Michigan.
92m; Ireland
Director: Frank Launder
Cast: Stewart Granger, Kathleen Ryan and Cecil Parker
Synopsis (NYT): Briskly, this “Captain Boycott” tells us how tenant farmers in Parnell’s Irish Land League resisted an outrageously haughty landowner, Captain Boycott by name, with a technique of non-cooperation when he persisted in bleeding them for rents, and how this treatment, in the end, was more effective than an advocated plan of violence.
63m; Italy
Director: Francesca Comencini
Synopsis: A profile of anti-G8 activist murdered by police in Genoa.
Contact: Print Source Rosella Gori Adriana Chiesa Enterprises Via Barnaba Oriani 24/A – 00197 Rome, Phone: 39 068 070 400 Fax: 39 068 068 7855 Email: adrianachiesa.ent@libero.it
40m; U.K.
Director: Toby Reisz
Synopsis: Profile of filmmaker Ken Loach’s life and his work.
51m; U.S.
Director: Alex Szalat
Synopsis: Biographical film about Clara Lelich, a Jewish socialist textile worker who played a major role in the “Uprising of the 20,000” which was a powerful moment in organizing New York’s textile sector and the growth of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU).
Contact: http://icarusfilms.com/new2005/clar.html
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