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Category Archives: Themes

COMPANY TOWN (2016)

07 Nov

A new documentary about high tech, political hustle, and the future of cities.
Directors: Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman <secrets@igc.org>

“Company Town” Trailer:

“Riveting…This high minded film lets the personal stories it has uncovered speak the truth to us in a way that “disrupts the disrupters…the best kind of story-telling.”
— Steven Hill, Huffington Post

“Company Town” is a shot of political energy — a valentine to the weird and wild hurly-burly of the electoral process at the grassroots level, from where true democracy springs.”
— David Talbot, founder of Salon and bestselling author of “Season of the Witch” and “The Devil’s Chessboard”

“I was thrilled by Company Town’s virtuoso storytelling, its compassion, and the message that democracy can actually win the fight (sometimes!) against our corporate overlords.”   — Josh Kornbluth, Monologuist & Filmmaker

 
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Posted by on November 7, 2016 in Big Business/Corporations, Documentary, Housing, Service Workers

 

At Any Price (2012)

11 Oct

R | | Drama, Sport, Thriller | 1 May 2013 (Philippines)
Director: Ramin Bahrani
Writers: Ramin Bahrani, Hallie Elizabeth Newton
Stars: Dennis Quaid, Zac Efron, Kim Dickens |

In this parable Willie Loman meets Monsanto. Henry Whipple (Dennis Quaid) is a flawed Iowa corn farmer and a sales rep for a GMO seed company, under pressure both to expand his territory and to increase his harvest — “go big or die.” Bahrani (Man Push Cart, 2005) addresses timeless themes: fathers and sons, ambition and rebellion, solidarity and self-interest, morality and survival and, ultimately, the death of dreams. The film is an unsettling and introspective take on the influence of economic and social forces on an American everyman.

 
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Posted by on October 11, 2016 in Big Business/Corporations, Drama, Farm & Food

 

THE JUDGEMENT (2014)

11 Oct

Dir. Stephan Komandarev/Bulgaria/2014/107 min SATURDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 17:30
The waves of migrants or refugees being smuggled across our borders are now daily news. But how do these people make it to Europe through often hostile and unforgiving terrain? Whilst many refugee stories are told, we know less about the people who actually do the smuggling. This Bulgarian entry for Best Foreign Language Oscar follows Mityo who, having lost his wife, job and the respect of his son, takes up a job smuggling Syrian refugees across the very Bulgarian/Turkish/Greek border he prevented people crossing whilst in the army. A film about the impact of momentous decisions, and the hostile mountain terrain at the heart of an illegal industry.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/XRCAYsrl37s

 
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Posted by on October 11, 2016 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration

 

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT (2015)

11 Oct

Dir. Michael Moore/USA/2015/120 mins

Having spent 25 years making films defending ordinary people, Moore is now one of the 100 most influential people alive according to Time Magazine. Moore now follows up Capitalism: A Love Story with Where to Invade Next, in which the formidable filmmaker tours the world to investigate what the USA could learn from other countries. Discovering that Italian workers get paid holidays and parental leave; Finland’s students have no homework; Slovenians don’t pay for university; and that Tunisian women have access to abortion, he also goes to Iceland, where women hold top governmental positions whilst (mostly male) bankers are prosecuted, in a brilliant film about people before profit.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/1KeAZho8TKo

 
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Posted by on October 11, 2016 in Comedy, Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Global Economy

 

Joy of Man’s Desiring (Que ta joie demeure) (2014)

10 Oct

1h 10min | Documentary, News | 16 January 2015 (USA)

Director: Denis Côté
Writer: Denis Côté
Stars: Olivier Aubin, Ted Pluviose, Hamidou Savadogo |

An open-ended exploration of the energies and rituals of various workplaces. From one worker to another and one machine to the next; hands, faces, breaks, toil: what kind of absurdist, abstract dialogue can be started between human beings and their need to work? What is the value of the time we spend multiplying and repeating the same motions that ultimately lead to a rest – a state of repose whose quality defies definition.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/jIaWeSRqNAg

 
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Posted by on October 10, 2016 in Automation, Documentary, Global Economy, Manufacturing, Philosophy

 

Uniquely Nasty: The U.S. Government’s War on Gays

10 Oct

Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage, Yahoo News presents a new 30-minute documentary, “Uniquely Nasty: The U.S. Government’s War on Gays,” reported and narrated by chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff. The film explores a dark and little-known chapter in America’s recent political past, when gays and lesbians were barred from working for the federal government and the FBI, through its“sex deviates” program, secretly collected hundreds of thousands of files on the sex lives of American citizens.

“Uniquely Nasty” includes never-before-seen government memos by legendary FBI director J. Edgar Hoover (read by George Takei) and John Steele, a top lawyer for the U.S. Civil Service Commission (read by Matt Bomer) asserting that gays were “not suitable” for federal employment.

More details here

https://www.yahoo.com/news/video/uniquely-nasty-official-full-trailer-190844260.html?ref=gs

https://www.yahoo.com/news/uniquely-nasty-u-governments-war-180000816.html?format=embed

 
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Posted by on October 10, 2016 in Discrimination: Racism, Sexism, etc, Public Sector

 

Living Wage Now

10 Oct

32.51 minutes

People in the West hear of the conditions endured by garment workers making clothes in Asian factories, but they rarely see them. A short documentary by the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA), a group of trade unions and labor rights activists, offers a glimpse of people at work in India, Cambodia, and Indonesia. It includes footage from factories, which aren’t necessarily tiny, claustrophobic rooms with decrepit walls and little light. The most startling conditions are where the workers live. Some live in homes that are little more than a single, bare room with no toilet or running water.
Read more

See the whole film here: https://youtu.be/PxFwA-jw3X4

Trailer: https://youtu.be/zsR87lFmE6Y

 
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Posted by on October 10, 2016 in Documentary, Global Economy, Textile Industry, Working Class

 

Blood On The Mountain (2014)

10 Oct

website: http://bloodonthemountain.com/

Blood on the Mountain is a searing investigation into the economic and environmental injustices that have resulted from industrial control in West Virginia. This new feature documentary details the struggles of a hard-working, misunderstood people, who have historically faced limited choices and have never benefited fairly from the rich, natural resources of their land. Blood On The Mountain delivers a striking portrait of a fractured population, exploited and besieged by corporate interests, and abandoned by the powers elected to represent them.

A film by Evening Star Productions
Directed By Mari-Lynn Evans and Jordan Freeman

Edited By Matthew Sanchez

Produced By Deborah Wallace, Mari-Lynn Evans and Jordan Freeman

Deborah Wallace: dwall003@msn.com; 347-613-1275

 
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Posted by on October 10, 2016 in Documentary, Environment, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing

 

The Dalfram Dispute 1938

10 Oct

http://www.thedalframdispute1938.com.au/

On November 15, 1938 the steamship Dalfram berthed at No. 4 jetty Port Kembla to load pig iron for Kobe, Japan. Ted Roach, Branch Secretary, addressed the men at the labour pick up for the Dalfram. He told the men of the destination of the pig iron and the use of the pig iron in the use of weapons – first to be used against the Chinese and they feared that eventually – against Australia.

At 11 am the men walked off the ship declaring they refused to load pig iron for Japan to turn into weapons. It led to an eleven week lock-out, with incredible pressure being applied by the government of the day. On the 11th of January 1939, Robert Menzies Attorney General at the time, came to Wollongong to sort out the dispute. He met with an angry crowd where a lady screamed out Pig Iron Bob for the first time. It lasted his lifetime.

Sandra Pires <sandra@whydocumentaries.com.au

 
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Posted by on October 10, 2016 in Documentary, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

Hidden Figures (2017)

10 Oct

HIDDEN FIGURES: THE AMERICAN DREAM AND THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE BLACK WOMEN MATHEMATICIANS WHO HELPED WIN THE SPACE RACE recovers the history of these pioneering women and situates it in the intersection of the defining movements of the American century: the Cold War, the Space Race, the Civil Rights movement and the quest for gender equality. (opens Jan 13 2017)

http://www.hiddenfigures.com/

http://margotleeshetterly.com/hidden-figures-nasas-african-american-computers/

 
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Posted by on October 10, 2016 in Discrimination: Racism, Sexism, etc, Drama, White Collar, Women

 
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