Synopsis: Documentary about the history of community development corporations and their origins in community protest.
Category Archives: Themes
Bound By Promises: Contemporary Slavery in Rural Brazil (2006)
17m; Brazil
Director: Christine Umali
Synopsis: Story of men who set out in search of work and are taken to isolated ranches in Brazil, only to find that they have been lured into debt bondage.
Contact: christine@witness.org 718 783 2000 x.342 (Work)
Buffalo Creek Flood and Buffalo Creek Revisited (1984)
31m; U.S.
Director: Mimi Pickering
Synopsis: Appalshop filmmaker Mimi Pickering returns to Buffalo Creek, West Virginia to look at the recovery of the community after one of the worst coal mine-related disasters in history. Ken Hechler, then a U.S. Congressman from WV, but not that district, is interviewed in the office of WVLC Film Services. From the film’s website – Filmed ten years after the flood, Buffalo Creek Revisited looks at the second disaster on Buffalo Creek, in which the survivors’ efforts to rebuild the communities shattered by the flood are thwarted by government insensitivity and a century-old pattern of corporate control of the region’s land and resources. Through the statements of survivors, planners, politicians, psychologists, and community activists, the film explores the psychology of disaster, the importance of community, and the paradox of a poor people living in a rich land.
Bullet Bargaining at Ludlow (1964)
20m; U.S.
Synopsis: Recounts an infamous chapter in Colorado history when militia and striking coal miners clashed on the plains of south Colorado at Ludlow.
Burning Rage (1984)
120m; U.S.
Director: Gilbert Cates
Cast: Barbara Mandrell, Tom Wopat and Bert Remsen
Synopsis: While coal fires burn beneath a depressed mining town a greedy businessman stops at nothing to buy up the mineral rights.
The Burning Season (1994)
123m; U.S.
Director: John Frankenheimer
Synopsis: This film is based on the life story of Brazilian rubber tapper, environmentalist, and union leader Chico Mendes who led a movement of indigenous rubber tappers in the Brazilian Amazon in struggle against powerful Brazilian rancher interests and multinational corporations and institutions.
Bubble (2005)
73m; U.S.
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Synopsis: Set against the backdrop of a decaying Midwestern town, a murder becomes the focal point of three people who work in a doll factory.
Brothers on the Line (2012)
A stirring portrait of the lives and legacy of the Reuther Brothers -Walter, Roy and Victor, pioneering labor leaders under the banner of the United Auto Workers Union. Directed by Victor’s grandson, Sasha Reuther and narrated by Martin Sheen, the film follows the brothers as they rise from militant shop-floor organizers to visionary statesmen in collective bargaining, civil rights and international labor solidarity. Brothers on the Line weaves the tale of one family’s quest to compel American democracy to live up to its promises of equality for all.
Director: Sasha Reuther, sasha@brothersontheline.com
http://www.brothersontheline.com
Porter Street Pictures
Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin (2008)
83m; U.S.
Director: Nancy D. Kates, Bennett Singer
Synopsis: Biography of Bayard Rustin, a socialist and pacifist activist involved in labor struggles and who became a key adviser to Martin Luther King, Jr. (including serving as the lead organizer for the 1963 March on Washington). Film also explores the constant conflicts Rustin was forced into given treatment of homosexuals.
Contact: http://rustin.org/
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