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Category Archives: Themes

Strumpet City (1980)

07 May

360m; Ireland

Cast: Frank Grimes, David Kelly, Angela Harding, Peter O’Toole

Synopsis (IMDB): Covering the years between 1907 and 1914, Strumpet City follows several characters through the nightmare years of the “Dublin Lockout,” when the Catholic Church sided with the industrialists to smash Irish labor’s first substantive steps towards unionizing. Using the real-life labor organizer Jim Larkin (Peter O’Toole) as the dramatic lynchpin for the various stories, Strumpet City juggles several storylines to give an overall view of the terrible poverty and misery that afflicted the working poor of Dublin. The central story revolves around Mary (Angela Harding), a young domestic who comes to work for the wealthy, oblivious Bradshaws (Edward Byrne and Daphne Carroll). Once Mary meets handsome, kind foundry worker “Fitz” Fitzpatrick (Bryan Murray), she immediately falls in love, and the couple make plans to save enough money to eventually marry. Mary, distressed at the way the Bradshaws shuttle off their devoted housekeeper Miss Gilchrist (Mairin D. O’Sullivan) to the poor house when she can no longer work, decides to leave the insensitive Bradshaw household and marry Fitz.

–http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/26709/strumpet-city/

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Class, Collective Bargaining, Drama, Organizing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

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Sudden Wake (2009)

07 May

11m; Egypt

Director: Mahmud Farag

Synopsis: The story of the struggle of Egypt’s first independent trade union – the Real Estate Tax Authority Union (RETA). RETA was formed in December 2008, one year after tax collectors there held a two-week sit-in in front of the Cabinet Building. They face constant harrassment from the Egyptian government as well as the country’s official labour federation, the ETUF.

Contact: Hamza Ashra

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Politics, Public Sector

 

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Sugar (2008)

07 May

120m; U.S.

Director: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck

Cast; Algenis Perez Soto, Rayniel Rufino and Andre Hollan

Synopsis: By 2008, more than 25 percent of major league baseball players were born in Latin America. At 19, Miguel “Sugar” Santos, a serious kid from the Dominican Republic, signs with Kansas City. He flies to Phoenix for tryouts and is sent to the Class A team “The Swing” in the fictional town of Bridgetown, Iowa, where he lives with a farm family. Thus begins his odyssey: leaving his mom and girlfriend; living in an alien culture; learning English; overcoming jitters; working hard; achieving early success; navigating friendships, occasional racism, and a woman’s mixed signals; dealing with an injury; trying performance-enhancing drugs; and, searching for his place in the world. Will he make it to the Majors; will he play in New York?

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

 

Sugar Cane Alley (1983)

07 May

103m; France

Director: Euzhan Palcy

Cast: Garry Cadenat, Darling Légitimus and Douta Seck

Synopsis (IMDB): Martinique, in the early 1930s. Young José and his grandmother live in a small village. Nearly everyone works cutting cane and barely earning a living. The overseer can fine a worker for the smallest infraction. The way to advance is to do well in school. José studies hard and succeeds in an exam allowing him to attend school in the capital. With only a partial scholarship, the tuition is very costly. José and his grandmother move to Fort-de-France to make José’s studies easier.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Children, Drama, Education, Farm & Food

 

The Sun Seekers (2009)

07 May

13m; U.S.

Director: Jason Bradbury

Synopsis (IMDB): In a world with no sun, two strangers, Cira and Sol, race against time to ensure the restoration of daylight. As their journey progresses, they realise they must learn to trust each other if they are to complete their task.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Philosophy, SciFi

 

Suicide Jumpers (2007)

07 May

13m; Lebanon

Director: Herbert Docena

Synopsis: Exploitation of domestic workers in Lebanon during 2006 Israeli assaults

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Documentary, Service Workers, War

 

Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

07 May

90m; U.S.

Director: Preston Sturges

Cast: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake and Robert Warwick

Synopsis (IMDB): Sullivan is a successful, spoiled, and naive director of fluff films, with a heart-o-gold, who decides he wants to make a film about the troubles of the downtrodden poor. Much to the chagrin of his producers, he sets off in tramp’s clothing with a single dime in his pocket to experience poverty first-hand, and gets some reality shock.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Comedy, Entertainment Industry, Unemployment-Wages, Working Class

 

Sunday Too Far Away (1975)

07 May

94m; Australia

Director: Ken Hannam

Cast:  Jack Thompson, Max Cullen and Robert Bruning

Synopsis (Wikipedia): The film is set on a sheep station in the Australian outback in 1955 and its action concentrates on the shearers’ reactions to a threat to their bonuses and the arrival of non-union labour.

Acclaimed for its understated realism of the work, camaraderie and general life of the shearer, Jack Thompson plays the knock-about Foley, a heavy drinking gun shearer (talented professional sheep shearer), and while he makes a play for the station owner’s daughter Sheila (Lisa Peers), the film is a presentation of various aspects of Australian male culture and not a romance; the film’s title itself is reputedly the lament of a shearer’s wife, ‘Friday night too tired; Saturday night too drunk; Sunday, too far away’.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Drama, Farm & Food

 

The Sundowners (1960)

07 May

133m; Australia

Director: Fred Zinnemann

Cast: Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum and Peter Ustinov

Synopsis (IMDB): In the Australian Outback, the Carmody family–Paddy, Ida and their teenage son Sean–are sheep drovers, always on the move. Ida and Sean want to settle down and buy a farm. Paddy wants to keep moving. A sheep-shearing contest, the birth of a child, drinking, gambling and a race horse will all have a part in the final decision.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Drama, Farm & Food, Working Class

 

Sunset Story (2003)

07 May

73m; U.S.

Director: Laura Gabbert

Synopsis (IMDB): Lucille and Irja are retired residents of Sunset Hall, a Los Angeles home for the elderly. Residents of Sunset Hall are retired radicals; they have retired from work but not from protesting against injustice. Bitter Lucille considers herself a realist. Wheelchair-bound Irja is sunny and optimistic. Lucille was raised a Jew but always aspired to assimilate. Irja wants to explore all sorts of new traditions. Through the lives of these women, Sunset Story shows the life at Sunset Hall: teachers, a dancer, an engineer, a social worker, and others, all living out their golden years in a unique environment.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Women

 
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