Themes | THE LABOR FILM DATABASE

Seacoal (1985)

82m;

Synopsis (IMDB): A visually powerful drama exploring the raw capitalism of seacoaling, rooted in a documentary engagement with the community of seacoalers on Lynemouth Beach in Northumberland.

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Posted by Metro Council on May 7, 2012 in Documentary, Women, Working Class

Tags: Boating and Shipping, Mining

Seasons in the Valley (2008)

07 May

Director: Adam Matalon

Synopsis: Jamaican H2 workers in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Contact: Adam (director/producer) 914-736-6400 6465490151 cel

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Posted by Metro Council on May 7, 2012 in Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration

Second Chances – Union Made (2008)

07 May

55m; U.S.

Director: Kelly Candaele

Synopsis: Follows union members who came out of street gangs and prison into the building trades unions and as a result changed their lives

Contact: kcandaele@sbcglobal.net 323-547-1183 (Cell)

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Posted by Metro Council on May 7, 2012 in Construction Trades, Documentary, Legal System, Working Class

Secret File (2003)

07 May

85m; Italy

Director: Paolo Benvenuti

Cast: Antonio Catania, David Coco and Sergio Graziani

Synopsis (Best of Sicily Magazine): The film recounts the story of the “Massacre of Ginestra” of May 1947. This was the murder by gunfire of eleven Communists during a political march at rural Portella della Ginestra, outside the Sicilian town of Piana degli Albanesi. Not only were people killed, but nearly thirty were injured. The crime, historically blamed on the band of the charismatic bandit Salvatore Giuliano, was previously depicted in Michael Cimino’s film The Sicilian, starring Christopher Lambert and John Turturro, which portrayed the rustic renegade as a Sicilian Robin Hood. The real Giuliano was killed under mysterious circumstances and a number of alleged accomplices arrested, but officially the mass murder was never solved. Mafia complicity has always been claimed, because organised crime opposed the Communist Party while supporting the Christian Democrats, who effectively controlled Italian politics for forty years. Obviously, the case was politically charged and hotly controversial. – http://www.bestofsicily.com/mag/art103.htm

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Posted by Metro Council on May 7, 2012 in Communism/Socialism, Drama, Labor History, War

Secret Life of Angels (2002)

07 May

France

Synopsis: two French working girls

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Posted by Metro Council on May 7, 2012 in Drama, Women

The Secret of the Grain (La Graine et le mulet) [2007]

07 May

151m; France

Director: Abdellatif Kechiche

Cast: Habib Boufares, Hafsia Herzi, Farida Benkhetache, Farida Benkhetache, Abdelhamid Aktouche, Leila D’Issernio

Synopsis: An idiosyncratic story about life, ambitions, frustrations, courage and indolence among North African migrant families in the south of France. After he’s laid off from the shipbuilding wharf, the ageing Slimane wants to start a restaurant on a ship.

Contact: International Film Festival Rotterdam Production Department: production@filmfestivalrotterdam.com Distributor: Pathe: florian.genetet@pathe.com Catherine MONTOUCHET: Catherine.Montouchet@pathe.com

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Posted by Metro Council on May 7, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Netflix Watch Instantly, Unemployment-Wages

Tags: Boating and Shipping

Secrets of Silicon Valley (2001)

07 May

60m; U.S.

Director: Deborah Kaufman/Alan Snitow

Synopsis: Temp workers/high tech workers

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Posted by Metro Council on May 7, 2012 in Documentary, Technology, Working Class

See You at Mao (AKA British Sounds) [1970]

07 May

52m; France/U.K.

Director: Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Henri Roger

Synopsis: After taking film to “zero” with -Le Gai Savoir-, Godard and the Dziga Vertov Group put out several Maoist/Marxist films, including this one. The main idea of British Sounds is exactly the soundtrack; the images are primarily still, with minimal camera movement: mostly tracks and pans. British Sounds is didactic and academic, but not without artistic merit, particularly the use of red and the jump-cutting fists that punch through the British flag repeatedly. The film has six parts, including the famous ten-minute track through an auto assembly line and a four-minute shot of a woman’s nude torso; it is also filled with speech, whether it’s a text from Engels read aloud or a newscaster talking about the necessities of burning women and children. A real agit-prop film, but, as Godard said about the later -Vladimir and Rosa-, also “a time piece.”

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Posted by Metro Council on May 7, 2012 in Communism/Socialism, Experimental