143m; Japan
Director: Shinsuke Ogawa
Synopsis: Peasants, students, workers, and the filmmakers themselves join in a five year struggle to resist giving up land for a new international airport near Toyko.
Category Archives: Themes
The Penthouse of Heaven (May Day Chicago) [2006]
27m; U.S.
Director: Larry Duncan
Synopsis: Illuminates the struggle for justice by workers today and the role of organized labor and many trade unionists in supporting this historic mobilization in the place where May Day started.
Contact: http://www.laborbeat.org
People at Work: How Jobs Change (1976)
12m; U.S.
Director: Coronet Instructional Media
Synopsis: Changes in jobs and job skill requirements as mechanization pervades the workplace
Perfumed Nightmare (1977)
93m; Philippines
Director: Kidlat Tahimik
Cast: Kidlat Tahimik, Mang Fely and Dolores Santamaria
Synopsis: This brilliant semi-autobiographical fable tells the story of a young Filipino born in 1942 (during the Occupation), his awakening to, and reaction against, American cultural colonialism. In his small village, Kidlat dreams of Cape Canaveral and listens to the Voice of America; he’s even the president of his village’s Werner Von Braun fan club. – http://www.lesblank.com/more/perfume.html
The Phantom of the Operator (2004)
A film by Caroline Martel
Canada, 2004, 66 minutes, Color/BW, DVD, French, Subtitled
Order No. W05869
Order No. W05869
This wry and delightful found-footage film reveals a little-known chapter in labor history: the story of female telephone operators’ central place in the development of global communications. With an eye for the quirky and humorous, Caroline Martel assembles a dazzling array of clips – more than one hundred remarkable, rarely seen industrial, advertising and scientific management films produced in North America between 1903 and 1989 by Bell and Western Electric – and transforms them into a dreamlike montage documentary.
As the first agents of globalization, this invisible army of women offered a way for companies to feminize and glamorize what was a highly stressful, underpaid and difficult job. Not merely “Voices with a Smile,” telephone operators were shooting stars in a universe of infinite progress, test pilots for new management systems, and the face of shrewd public relations campaigns. As the work of operators has been eclipsed by the advent of automated systems, this artful piece of labor history also offers an insightful comment on women’s work, industrialization and communications technology. Refreshing and hilarious, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERATOR provides a wry yet ethereal portrait of human society in the technocratic age.
available from Women Make Movies
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