57m; U.S.
Director: Hector Galan
Synopsis (IMDB): A sequel to Edward R. Murrow’s famous Harvest of Shame documentary, showing the deplorable conditions of migrant farm workers in 1960, found little has changed in 30 years.
Category Archives: Themes
The New Los Angeles (2007)
55m; U.S.
Director: Lyn Goldfarb
Synopsis: A powerful portrait of a city transformed by immigration, race and labor.
Contact: Patricia Aufderheide
New River: Older than Time (1989)
29m; U.S.
Synopsis: Wayne Sourbear, an employee of WSWP-TV, travels down the New River, explores the people, history and great beauty of this waterway in his 1989 short.
Contact: Access: WVPBS TV. Debbie Oleksa, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, Morgantown, 1- 888-596-9729 or her cell 304-284-1455
The New Rulers of the World (2001)
54m; U.K.
Director: Alan Lowery, John Pilger
Synopsis (IMDB): The myths of globalisation have been incorporated into much of our everyday language. “Thinking globally” and “the global economy” are part of a jargon that assumes we are all part of one big global village, where national borders and national identities no longer matter. But what is globalisation? And where is this global village? In 2001, John Pilger made ‘The New Rulers of the World’, a film exploring the impact of globalisation. It took Indonesia as the prime example, a country that the World Bank described as a ‘model pupil’ until its ‘globalised’ economy collapsed in 1998. Globalisation has not only made the world smaller. It has also made it interdependent. An investment decision made in London can spell unemployment for thousands in Indonesia, while a business decision taken in Tokyo can create thousands of new jobs for workers in north-east England..
Next Year Country (2009)
56m; U.S.
Director: Joseph Aguirre
Synopsis: Faced with losing their farms, three Montana families hire a rainmaker in a desperate attempt to bring relief to their drought-stricken communities. NEXT YEAR COUNTRY tells the heartfelt story of three families and the optimism which sustains them in their struggle to hold on to a vanishing way of life.
Contact: info@nextyearcountry.com
Night Mail (1936)
22:39m; available on YouTube
Night Mail is a 1936 documentary film about a London, Midland and Scottish
Railway (LMS) mail train from London to Scotland, produced by the GPO Film
Unit. A poem by English poet W. H. Auden was specially written for it, used
in the closing few minutes, as was music by Benjamin Britten. (The two men
also collaborated on a rail-documentary on the line from London to
Portsmouth, The Way to the Sea, also in 1936.)
The film was directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, and narrated by John
Grierson and Stuart Legg. The Brazilian filmmaker Alberto Cavalcanti was the
sound director. It starred Royal Scot 6115 Scots Guardsman.
As recited in the film, the poem’s rhythm imitates that of the train’s
wheels as they clatter over the track sections, beginning slowly but picking
up speed so that by the time the narration reaches the penultimate verse the
narrator is speaking at a breathless pace. As the train slows toward its
destination the final verse is taken at a more sedate pace. The famous
opening lines of the poem are “This is the Night Mail crossing the border /
Bringing the cheque and the postal order”.
Nightsongs (1983)
116m; U.S.
Director: Marva Nabili
Cast: Victor Wong, Ida F.O. Chung and Mei Bo Kwong
Synopsis: Immigrant worklife in NYC’s Chinatown (directed by an immigrant).
No Contract, No Cookies: The Stella D’Oro Strike (2010)
39m; U.S.
Director: Jon Alpert, Matthew O’Neill
Synopsis (IMDB): Follows the struggle of 138 mostly immigrant workers who strike to save their jobs at a famous bakery in the Bronx when a private equity firm buys the bakery and demands wage cuts of up to 30%.
Contact: http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/no-contract-no-cookies-the-stella-doro-strike/index.html#/documentaries/no-contract-no-cookies-the-stella-doro-strike/synopsis.html
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