60m
Director: Katerina Cizek, Peter Wintonick
Synopsis: The impact of consumer video equipment on international political activism efforts.
Category Archives: Themes
The Shipbuilders
90m; U.K.
Director: John Baxter
Cast: Clive Brook, Morland Graham and Nell Ballantyne
Synopsis: Clydeside shipbuilder and a loyal riveter fight to keep Britain a seapower
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
99m; U.S.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart and Frank Morgan
Synopsis (IMDB): In Budapest, Hungary, the Matuschek and Company store is owned by Mr. Hugo Matuschek and the bachelor Alfred Kralik is his best and most experienced salesman. When Klara Novak seeks a job position of saleswoman in the store, Matuschek hires her but Kralik and she do not tolerate each other. Meanwhile the lonely and dedicated Kralik has an unknown pen pal that he intends to propose very soon; however, he is fired without explanation by Matuschek in the night that he is going to meet his secret love. He goes to the bar where they have scheduled their meeting with his colleague Pirovitch and he surprisingly finds that Klara is his correspondent; however, ashamed with the unemployment, he does not disclose his identity to her. When Matuschek discovers that he had misjudged Kralik and committed a mistake, he hires him again for the position of manager. But Klara is still fascinated with her future fiancé and does not pay much attention to Kralik.
Shots on the Docks (2003)
28m; U.S.
Synopsis: The stepped up repression of anti-war demonstrators and trade unionists took a new turn in the U.S. on April 7, 2003, when Oakland, California police attacked a peaceful picket on the docks. The Labor Video Project was there when Oakland police fired over a hundred shots of rubber bullets and wooden projectiles as well as concussion grenades to attack the anti-war protest. This video interviews the workers on the picket line as well as ILWU longshoremen who were standing by and were also targeted by the police and the company. It goes behind the pictures to expose the reasons that trade unionists joined the line and the reaction of ILWU Local 10 members to the attacks and arrests of their business agent. There is also an international campaign to defend ILWU BA Jack Heyman and the Oakland 25 who face criminal charges for the April 7 incident. – http://www.reelwork.org/archive/2004/films2004.htm
Contact: “Shots on the Docks” is also being streamed at: http://www.brightpathvideo.com/Labor_Video.htm purchase info: lvpsf@igc.org Photo credit: Labor Video Project Photo caption: worker holds wood bullet fired by police http://www.laborbeat.org phone: 312-226-3330 mail@laborbeat.org
Shout Youngstown
Synopsis: Documentary on closings of steel plants in Youngstown, OH and the effects on the community.
Contact: View here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jk4ARquynE
Shutdown (1980)
26m; U.S.
Director: Laura Sky
Synopsis: This film documents the closing down of an American-owned branch plant, with all the personal trauma that such a decision causes the workers. The employees discuss the dilemma of working in an economy dominated by foreign ownership and the lack of government action to protect jobs in American-owned branch plants.
Contact: http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=13252
Sicko (2007)
123m; U.S.
Director: Michael Moore
Cast: Michael Moore, Tucker Albrizzi and Tony Benn
Synopsis (IMDB): Documentary look at health care in the United States as provided by profit-oriented health maintenance organizations (HMOs) compared to free, universal care in Canada, the U.K., and France. Moore contrasts U.S. media reports on Canadian care with the experiences of Canadians in hospitals and clinics there. He interviews patients and doctors in the U.K. about cost, quality, and salaries. He examines why Nixon promoted HMOs in 1971, and why the Clintons’ reform effort failed in the 1990s. He talks to U.S. ex-pats in Paris about French services, and he takes three 9/11 clean-up volunteers, who developed respiratory problems, to Cuba for care. He asks of Americans, “Who are we?”
Signal Seven (1986)
92m; U.S.
Director: Rob Nilsson
Cast: Bill Ackridge, Dan Leegant and John Tidwell
Synopsis (New York Times): The title refers to a radio distress call for a taxi driver in trouble and the movie is about people in various states of distress and the subtle signals for help they send out. It’s also about pride, loneliness, friendship, ambition, failure, fear and hope, as seen through the daily lives of a group of middle-aged cab drivers. The film follows two of them, Marty and Speed, played with depth and sensitivity by Dan Leegant and Bill Ackridge, through a night’s rounds at a time when one of their colleagues is brutally murdered. They audition for parts, play cards, trade tall tales, pick up fares, cope with the murder and try to get on with life.
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