25m; U.S.
Director: Media Intransigence
Synopsis: Garment workers take over factory and run it through workers’ collective
Category Archives: Themes
Professional Revolutionary: The Life of Saul Wellman (2004)
65m; U.S.
Director: Judith Montell & Ronald Aronson
Synopsis (Wikipedia): Under-educated, Wellman fought in the army, worked in a car factory for Ford and was employed at a printing company; Wellman fought against Fascism in both the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Wellman returned home at the start of the Cold War, to help organize and lead the Communist Party in America. Then when the 60s came along, Wellman latched onto the civil rights movement. The documentary deals with wheelchair-using Wellman, during the last years of his life, at an Iraq war protest. Throughout his life, Wellman was an organizer and passionate speaker.
Profit & Nothing But! Or Impolite Thoughts on the Class Struggle (2001)
52m
Diector: Raoul Peck
Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (2007)
58m; U.S.
Director: John Gianvito
Synopsis: Using Howard Zinn’s A People¹s History of the United States as a basis, filmmaker Gianvito crafts an elegant and elegiac chronicle of the progressive movement in America by visiting cemeteries, plaques, and monuments. Told without narration, Gianvito pays homage to those who fought for their beliefs and who have been forgotten by popular history.
The Progressive Era (1971)
20m; U.S.
Director: Encyclopedia Brittanica Educational Corporation
Synopsis: An overview of the social contrasts in American life from the Gilded Age through WWI, with comparisons to the New Deal and the Civil Rights Movement
The Progressives (1969)
20m; U.S.
Director: McGraw-Hill Book Company
Synopsis: Traces the progressive movement from its beginning in 1890 through WWI. Notes that it was a revolt of the American conscience in the cities and on the state and federal levels corruption, poverty, prejudice and other social evils.
Project XX: The Innocent Years (1957)
53m; U.S.
Director: Donald Hyatt
Synopsis: A record of America changing from a rural to an industrialized society. Highlighting major events in national life through 1917.
Promises to Keep (1988)
57m; U.S.
Director: Ginny Durrin
Cast: Martin Sheen, Mitch Snyder
Synopsis: Documentary about the work of homeless advocate Mitch Snyder and the Community for Creative Non-Violence during the 1980s in response to rising homelessness and federal housing cuts.
Pulp Fiction, Poison Promises (1995)
14m; U.S.
Director: Mimi Pickering
Synopsis: Mimi Pickering of Appalshop was hired to direct a film about the proposed pulp mill to be built at Apple Grove, Mason County. The Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation paid for the film that explores the dangers that the pulp mill would present – to the workers and the local environment including dumping dioxin into the Ohio River. Many groups, both labor and environmental, opposed the mill, supported by Gov. Caperton and the Legislature. Eventually, the mill was not built. The film also examines the impact that the company’s pulp mill had in the area around Monroe, AL. The film was broadcast on WV television several times. See Doug Hawes-Davis’ film,” Green Rolling Hills” and “Southbound” from High Plains Films. Access: Steve Fesenmaier, WVLC
Quilombo (1986)
119; Brazil
Director: Carlos Diegues
Cast: Jonas Bloch, Zózimo Bulbul and Emmanuel Cavalcanti
Synopsis (IMDB): Palmares is a 17th-century quilombo, a settlement of escaped slaves in northeast Brazil. In 1650, plantation slaves revolt and head for the mountains where they find others led by the aged seer, Acotirene. She anoints one who becomes Ganga Zumba, a legendary king. For years, his warriors hold off Portuguese raiders; then he agrees to leave the mountains in exchange for reservation land and peace. It’s a mistake. Zumbi, a warrior whose mother was killed by Portuguese and who spent 15 years with the Whites, stays in the mountains to lead Palmares. In 1694, the Portuguese import a ruthless captain from São Paulo to lead an assault on the free Blacks. Can Zumbi keep Palmares free?
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