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Category Archives: Unemployment-Wages

The Secret of the Grain (La Graine et le mulet) [2007]

07 May

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

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Netflix Watch Instantly, Unemployment-Wages

 

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The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

07 May

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.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Comedy, Drama, Romance, Unemployment-Wages, Working Class

 

Shout Youngstown

07 May

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

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Available Online, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Outsourcing, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), Unemployment-Wages, Working Class

 

Shutdown (1980)

07 May

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

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Politics, Unemployment-Wages

 

Stanley and Iris (1989)

07 May

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.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Drama, Romance, Unemployment-Wages, Working Class

 

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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

 

Tauw (1970)

07 May

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.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Drama, Unemployment-Wages

 

The Boss of it All (2006)

07 May

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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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Comedy, Unemployment-Wages, White Collar

 

Professional Revolutionary: The Life of Saul Wellman (2004)

26 Apr

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.

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2012 in Documentary, Labor History, Organizing, Politics, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Unemployment-Wages, War, Working Class

 

Promises to Keep (1988)

26 Apr

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.

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2012 in Documentary, Organizing, Unemployment-Wages

 
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