8m; U.S.
Director: Workers Film and Photo League of the WIR
Synopsis: Unemployment demo in Union Square in 1931
Category Archives: Unemployment-Wages
Crossing the American Crises: From Collapse to Action (2011)
82m; U.S.
Director: Silvia Leindecker & Michael Fox
Synopsis: This documentary explores two major developments in recent U.S. history. The first is the impact that the September 2008 financial crisis had on ordinary working people throughout the country. The second is the response of working people to the crises affecting them, including their reaction to the government’s bailouts and Obama’s election. Particular attention is devoted to the emergence of progressive grass-roots movements such as the Vermont Workers’ Center, the Green Worker Cooperative in the Bronx, the Santa Fe Alliance in New Mexico, and the Iraq Veterans Against the War. The film’s overall theme is that the recent economic collapse indicates that it is “the people” themselves who must organize and act to bring about greater economic and social justice. Discussion will follow the film, with comments by Occupy Pittsburgh participants and others.
The Secret of the Grain (La Graine et le mulet) [2007]
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
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.
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
Stanley and Iris (1989)
104m; U.S.
Director: Martin Ritt
Cast: Jane Fonda, Robert De Niro and Swoosie Kurtz
Synopsis (IMDB): An illiterate cook at a company cafeteria tries for the attention of a newly widowed woman. As they get to know one another, she discovers his inability to read. When he is fired, she takes on trying to teach him to read in her kitchen each night.
Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
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.
Tauw (1970)
30m; Senegal (Africa)
Director: Ousmane Sembene
Synopsis: A young unemployed man fends off accusations of laziness and makes a home for his pregnant girlfriend who has been rejected by her family.
The Boss of it All (2006)
99m; Denmark
Director: Lars von Trier
Cast: Jens Albinus, Peter Gantzler and Friðrik Þór Friðriksson
Synopsis: “It’s a comedy and harmless,” is how Von Trier introduces this film, described by one reviewer as “ ‘The Office’ Viewed Through the Looking Glass.” In this dark satire, filmed entirely in an office, an out-of-work actor, hired by the director of a Danish IT company to impersonate its non-existent CEO, bumbles through meetings with senior employees and negotiations with an Icelandic businessman who wants to buy the firm. The film’s off-kilter visual style (a computer randomly determined when to tilt, pan or zoom the camera) works in the film’s favor, uncannily echoing the nonsense and frustration of our everyday lives. (Rochester Labor Film Series 2010)
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