Themes | THE LABOR FILM DATABASE

New in Town (2009)

97m; US
Director: Jonas Elmer
Writers: Ken Rance, C. Jay Cox
Stars: Renée Zellweger, Harry Connick Jr. and Siobhan Fallon

A high-powered consultant (Renée Zellweger) in love with her upscale Miami lifestyle is sent to New Ulm, Minnesota, to oversee the restructuring of a blue collar manufacturing plant. After enduring a frosty reception from the locals, icy roads and freezing weather, she warms up to the small town’s charm, and eventually finds herself being accepted by the community. When she’s ordered to close down the plant and put the entire community out of work, she’s forced to reconsider her goals and priorities, and finds a way to save the town.

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Posted by Labor Film Database on November 6, 2011 in Comedy, Romance, Women, Working Class

Rosie the Riveter (1944)

06 Nov

75m; US
Director: Joseph Santley
Writers: Dorothy Curnow Handley (story), Jack Townley (screenplay), and 1 more credit »
Stars: Jane Frazee, Frank Albertson and Barbara Jo Allen

In wartime 1944 in California,defense plant workers Rosalind “Rosie” Warren and her friend Vera Watson must share, on a rotating schedule, the town’s last available rental-room with Charlie Doran and Kelly Kennedy, who work the other shift at the plant. The landlady, Grandma Quill , also has her grandchildren, Buzz Prouty and Mabel Prouty , and her daughter Stella Prouty —who is on the outs with her husband Clem —living with her. Rosie doesn’t tell her fiancé, Wayne Calhoun, about the living arrangements, and is also plotting with Vera to re-unite the Proutys. Rosie pawns the engagement ring Wayne gave her for money for Clem and Stella. Rosie and Charlie fall in love and get their picture in the paper. Wayne huffingly breaks the engagement and wants his ring returned. Written by Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net> IMDB

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Posted by Labor Film Database on November 6, 2011 in Comedy, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Romance, Women

Dish: Women, Waitressing and the Art of Service (2010)

05 Nov

58m; Canada
Color, DVD, French/Japanese/English, Subtitled

Director: Maya Gallus
View trailer

Why do women bring your food at local diners, while in high-end establishments waiters are almost always men? DISH, by Maya Gallus, whose acclaimed GIRL INSIDE (2007) won Canada’s Gemini Award for documentary directing, answers this question in a delicious, well-crafted deconstruction of waitressing and our collective fascination with an enduring popular icon. Digging beyond the obvious, Gallus, who waited tables in her teens, explores diverse dynamics between food servers and customers, as well as cultural biases and attitudes they convey. Her feminist analysis climbs the socio-economic ladder—from the bustling world of lower-end eateries, where women prevail as wait staff, to the more genteel male-dominated sphere of haute cuisine. Astute, amusing observations from women on the job in Ontario’s truck stop diners, Montreal’s topless”sexy restos,” a Parisian super-luxe restaurant, and Tokyo’s fantasy “maid cafés”, as well as male customers’ telling comments, disclose how gender, social standing, earning opportunities, and working conditions intersect in the food service industry.
– Women Make Movies

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Posted by Labor Film Database on November 5, 2011 in Documentary, Service Workers, Women

450, Four Hundred and Fifty (Cuatrocientos cincuenta) (2001)

30 Oct

49m; Argentina
Director: Dario Doria

Documentary film which reflects the injustice suffered by millions of retired people in Argentina. It narrates the daily struggle of a group of elderly people who don’t resign to the fact that their rights are being violated. Under the motto “with the strength of those who do not give up”, they meet every Wednesday across from the National Congress to request a minimum monthly retirement payment of 450 pesos that will allow them to lead a dignified life. Demonstrations have been inexorably done for over ten years now, though weakened day after day by the disappearance of some participants. Those that remain cannot give up the fight, which so far has obtained no response whatsoever from the State, whose idea of a solution seems to be to let time go by.
– 5^th Seoul International Labor Film and Video Festival

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 30, 2011 in Documentary, Working Class

42: Forty Two Up (1998)

30 Oct

139m; UK
Director: Michael Apted
Stars: Bruce Balden, Jacqueline Bassett and Symon Basterfield

The Up Series is a series of documentary films produced by Granada Television that have followed the lives of fourteen British children since 1964, when they were seven years old. The documentary has had seven episodes spanning 49 years and the documentary has been broadcast on both ITV and BBC. In a 2005 Channel 4 programme, the series topped the list of The 50 Greatest Documentaries. The children were selected to represent the range of socio-economic backgrounds in Britain at that time, with the explicit assumption that each child’s social class predetermines their future. Every seven years, the director, Michael Apted, films new material from as many of the fourteen as he can get to participate. According to Apted, 56 Up is expected to have its broadcast premiere from 13 to 15 May 2012
– Wikipedia

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 30, 2011 in Documentary, Working Class

35 Up (1991)

30 Oct

128m; UK
Director: Michael Apted
Stars: Bruce Balden, Jacqueline Bassett and Symon Basterfield

Documentary tracking group of British people of different classes.

“If there’s ever been a more telling indictment that, indeed, the poor stay poor and the rich get rich, I haven’t found it. 35 Up is nothing less than a bleak yet scathing documentary skewering the class structure of Britain.”
Christopher Null

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 30, 2011 in Documentary, Working Class

30 Days – Working In A Coal Mine (2008)

30 Oct

55M; U.S.
Director: Morgan Spurlock
Cast: Morgan Spurlock

30 Days TV series (FX) creator Morgan Spurlock returns to his home state of West Virginia, to work as a rookie apprentice coalminer known as a “redhat” for 30 days. He also takes a little time to socialize with the miners and their families, and briefly explores the problems of mountaintop removal mining and the destruction of both the environment and the coal miners’ health.

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 30, 2011 in Documentary, Working Class

Tags: Mining

24 Days in Brooks (2009)

29 Oct

24m; Canada
Director: Dana Inkster

In a decade, tiny Brooks, Alberta has been transformed from a socially conservative, primarily Caucasian town to one of the most diverse places in Canada. Hijabs have become commonplace, downtown bars feature calypso and residents speak 90 different languages. Immigrants and refugees have flocked here to work at Lakeside Packers – one of the world’s largest slaughterhouses. Centering on the 24 days of the first-ever strike at Lakeside, this film is a nuanced portrait of people working together and adapting to change. They are people like Peter Jany Khwai, who escaped war in Sudan, wears an African shirt and a cowboy hat, and affirms his Canadian identity as well as his determination to fight for his rights. Or Edil Hassan, a devout Muslim born in Somalia, who counts her hours of organizing and picketing among her proudest moments. As 24 Days in Brooks shows, people from widely different backgrounds can work together for respect, dignity, and change – even though getting there is not easy.

24 Days in Brooks was produced as part of the Reel Diversity Competition for emerging filmmakers of colour. Reel Diversity is a National Film Board of Canada initiative in partnership with CBC Newsworld. The DVD includes the original English version of the film and the English version with French subtitles.
Contact Info: http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=56986

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 29, 2011 in Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

24 City (Er shi si cheng ji) (2008)

29 Oct

112m; China
Director: Jia Zhangke
Stars: Jianbin Chen, Joan Chen and Liping Lü

Follows three generations of characters in Chengdu (in the 1950s, the 1970s and the present day) as a state-owned factory gives way to a modern apartment complex.
Cinema Guild, Ryan Krivoshey: rkrivoshey@cinemaguild.com

“Change and a city in China. In Chengdu, factory 420 is being pulled down to make way for multi-story buildings with luxury flats. Scenes of factory operations, of the workforce, and of buildings stripped bare and then razed, are inter-cut with workers who were born in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s telling their stories – about the factory, which manufactured military aircraft, and about their work and their lives. A middle-aged man visits his mentor, now elderly; a woman talks of being a 19-year-old beauty there and ending up alone. The film concludes with two young people talking, each the child of workers, each relaying a story of one visit to a factory. Times change.” IMDB; written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 29, 2011 in Drama, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Working Class