10m; U.S.
Synopsis: AFL-CIO video on its plan to make health care a major topic of the 2008 elections.
Category Archives: Politics
Twenty Years Later (1985)
119m; Brazil
Director: Eduardo Coutinho
Synopsis (IMDB): Eduardo Coutinho was filming a movie with the same name in the Northeast of Brazil, in 1964, when there came the military coup. He had to interrupt the project, and came back to it in 1981, looking for the same places and people, showing what had ocurred since then, and trying to gather a family whose patriarch, a political leader fighting for rights of country people, had been murdered.
Uncounted
Explosive new documentary that shows how the election fraud that changed the outcome of the 2004 election led to even greater fraud in 2006 – and now looms as an unbridled threat to the outcome of all elections. This controversial feature length film by Emmy award-winning director David Earnhardt examines in factual, logical, and yet startling terms how easy it is to change election outcomes and undermine election integrity across the U.S. Noted computer programmers, statisticians, journalists, and experienced election officials provide the irrefutable proof.
http://www.uncountedthemovie.com/
Working for American Workers (2010)
55m; U.S.
Director: College of Labor and Employment Lawyers
Synopsis: Documentary highlighting labor turbulence in the 60s and 70s through the eyes of former Labor Secretaries Willard Wirtz and Bill Usery. Includes the pilots strike among other events, and shows “vividly how labor secretaries can differ in interests and style, with very different effects on labor.”
Contact: College Executive Director Susan Wan SWan@gibsondunn.com 202-955-8225
You May Call Her Madam Secretary
58m; U.S.
Director: Robert & Marjory Potts
Synopsis: Biography of the first woman cabinet secretary and “mother” of Social Security, Frances Perkins.
Seeds of Peace (2008)
50m; Holland/Palestine
Director: André Kloer
Synopsis: Seeds of Peace: workers’ rights in a legal no-mans’ land tells the story of Palestinians who work in the Israeli settlements on the West Bank. One of these settlements is Nizzane Ha Shalom (Seeds of Peace). Because of the questionable juridical status of the Israeli settlements on the West Bank, it is unclear which laws apply to Palestinians who work there. There is also a weak enforcements of the few laws that do exist. The consequence of this juridical no-man’s land is that Palestinians work in the settlements without minimum wage and legal protection. Despite of this, more and more Palestinians are turning for work to these settlements, because the Palestinian economy is unable to create enough jobs. Jawdat Talousy was one of these workers and defended his rights for all he was worth. He tried to unite the workers in order to demand better labour conditions and was fired by the boss.
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?”
Strike (Strajk – Die Heldin von Danzig) [2006]
104m; Poland/Germany
Director: Volker Schlöndorff
Cast: Katharina Thalbach, Andrzej Chyra and Dominique Horwitz
Synopsis: Shows the beginnings of Poland’s Solidarity movement through the little-known figure of Anna Walentynowicz. The latest film from the director of The Tin Drum tells the true story of an ordinary woman who helped spark a revolution in Poland. Shipyard welder Agnieszka (Katharina Thalbach), concerned about dangerous working conditions, speaks up to no avail. After an accident kills several employees and their families are denied pension benefits, she steps up her activities, becoming a union leader and powerful adviser to Lech Walesa, laying the foundation for the Solidarity movement.
Contact: http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/home/default.asp
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