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Category Archives: Themes

The Last Pullman Car (1984)

13 Jun

53m; U.S.
Director: Jenny Rohrer, Greg LeRoy
http://www.kartemquin.com/films/the-last-pullman-car

Synopsis: In 1864, George Pullman began selling his famous railroad sleeping cars which helped him build a vast industrial empire that was supposed to last forever. In 1981, however, Pullman workers found themselves in the midst of a fight not only for their jobs but the future of the American rail car industry. One hundred years of government, union and corporate policies are traced in this engaging story.

Contact: Available from New Day Films 22 Riverview Drive, Wayne, NJ 07470.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Labor History, Manufacturing, Transportation, Working Class

 

The Law of Profit (2007)

13 Jun

81m; Spain

Director: Jawad Rhalib

Synopsis: Where do the perfect fruits and vegetables of Europe come from? This film shows the deplorable conditions of the more than 80,000 Moroccan immigrants living and literally slaving under the plastic sheet that protect the crops, and above all, the laws of profit in southern Spain.

Contact: Clap d’Ort Films Sprl + 32 485 709 737 mo@clapdortfilms.be / http://elejidothelawofprofit.blogspot.com jrhalib@latchodrom.be

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Farm & Food, Immigrants/Immigration, Migrant workers

 

The Long March, The BTR Strike (1986)

13 Jun

26m; South Africa

Director: Open Eye Productions

Synopsis: Strike of South African workers.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant (2009)

13 Jun

40m; U.S.

Director: Steve Bognar & Julia Reichert

Synopsis: An intimate look at the final days of a General Motors Plant in Moraine, Ohio, and the lives of the workers affected by its closing.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Manufacturing, Unemployment-Wages

 

The Mall (2006)

13 Jun

13m; Israel

Director: Yonatan Ben Efrat

Synopsis: At one of central Israel’s largest junctions, in a surreal underground world, live hundreds of Palestinian workers in hiding in order to find a day’s work and bring something home to their families in the West Bank. Deep in the concrete skeleton of an abandoned shopping mall, the workers sleep during the week. Those who have been arrested in the past confirm that the mall is worse than jail, yet they don’t ask for freedom – they only want a day’s work.

Contact: 2009 Geneva Labour Film Shorts Festival World Health Organisation and Video 48

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Migrant workers, Politics, Service Workers

 

The Motherhood Manifesto

13 Jun

2007, US, 58 minutes
Directed by Laura Pacheco
Produced by John de Graaf and Laura Pacheco
Writer – John de Graaf
Executive Producer – Joan Blades
Photographer/Editor – Diana Wilmar
Music – Claudia Schmidt
Narrator – Mary Steenburgen

Looks at the obstacles facing working mothers and families and the employer and public policy changes needed to restore work-life balance.

 

 

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Children, Documentary, Service Workers, Women

 

The Murals and Art of Bernard Zakheim (2009)

13 Jun

27m; U.S.

Director: Margot Smith

Synopsis: Bernard Zakheim (1896 – 1985) was born in Poland and came to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1918. He was well known for his many murals and frescos financed in part by the Works Progress Administration under Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1930s New Deal. Nathan and Masha Zakheim, Bernard’s son and daughter, tell of their father’s work in Poland, the story of the Coit Tower murals, of his Holocaust paintings and his later work celebrating life. Murals shown here include The Library at Coit Tower, The Jewish Wedding at the San Francisco Community Center, and The History of Medicine in California at Toland Hall, University of California, San Francisco.

Contact: offcentervideo@aol.com http://www.offcentervideo.com

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Arts/Culture, Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration, Working Class

 

The Nanny Business (2010)

13 Jun

44m; Canada

Director: Shelley Saywell

Synopsis: Traces the story of Edelyn Pineda who left her three children behind and paid thousands of dollars to a recruitment agency in Canada to make the arrangements and book her with a family. She arrived to discover that the agent had taken her fee but the “employer” who signed her contract was not interested in her services. Joelina Maluto came to Canada after working in Hong Kong and the Middle East because “I heard Canada was a good country, and after two years I could bring my children here.” Instead, she arrived to find she had no job and was forced to live in her agent’s basement with 16 other nannies for the next 2 and a half months. When the agent finally got her a job, the employer forced her to work 18 hour days. Edelyn and Joelina were among several nannies brave enough to go public about their experiences in the hope of forcing change. Their stories are put into wider context by journalist Susan McClelland, whose own search for a nanny led her to this story, and whose subsequent article “Nanny Abuse” for Walrus Magazine won an Amnesty Award.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Service Workers, Women

 

The Oldest New River (1980)

13 Jun

21m; U.S.

Synopsis: A trip back in time to the early days of the New River Community, Thurmond, WV. Once a larger raildroad town than Cincinatti, Thurmond and the local area was a booming coal mining region. Many of the buildings no longer exist. Slowly, the area is slipping into the growing forest. See film “Thurmond.” Background: In 1980 Steve Fesenmaier and Ken Sullivan traveled to John Dragon’s Class IV whitewater company on the New River. Dragon gave them a U-matic video copy of a recent TV show made in North Carolina about Thurmond. Fesenmaier and film archivist Richard Fauss worked together to have the film transferred to 16 mm film for showing around the state.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Environment, Working Class

 

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The Promotion (2008)

13 Jun

85m; U.S.

Director: Steve Conrad

Synopsis (Wikipedia): Doug Stauber (Seann William Scott) is the assistant manager of a branch of Donaldson’s, a supermarket chain in Chicago. He believes that he is a “shoo-in” for manager of a Donaldson’s that is scheduled for construction just a few blocks away from his home. Everyday, Doug deals with the pressures of being the assistant manager. Among his ordeals are an unruly gang of black teenagers loitering around the parking lot, the overwhelming amount of negative comments on the customer survey cards he collects (nearly all of which are caused by the gang’s antics), a foreigner who constantly slaps him over a box of Teddy Grahams and the rumors about him being a former Junior Olympics medalist in gymnastics. Then one day, Richard Wehlner (John C. Reilly) and his family move in from Quebec, and he becomes assistant manager alongside Doug.

Over the course of the film, the two men fight for the managerial job, trying to impress the store’s manager Scott (Fred Armisen) and the Donaldson’s board of directors (led by Mitch, played by Gil Bellows). The competition causes strain on their respective marriages. Doug is under financial pressure to get the job because he has begun to buy a house that he cannot afford if he is not promoted while his wife Jen (Jenna Fischer) ponders on going to night school. Meanwhile, Richard’s wife Laurie (Lili Taylor) and daughter leave him to temporarily move to her parents’ home in Scotland when she sees he is losing control and reverting to previous problem behavior.

Contact: http://www.thepromotionmovie.com/

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Comedy, Working Class

 
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