France
Synopsis: two French working girls
Category Archives: Women
Silent Voices (2010)
14m; Pakistan/France
Director: Aisha Gazdar
Synopsis: The stories of women home-based workers in Pakistan told in a gritty and realistic style
Silk and Iron (2002)
26m; Thailand
Director: Committee for Asian Women
Synopsis: Shows how the economic policies of the IMF and World Bank have made women pay a heavy price in their struggle to survive.
Contact: http://www.cawinfo.org
Sisters Of Philadelphia (2006)
11m; U.S.
Director: K. S. Haskey
Synopsis: Women in the Carpenters Union. Women in non-traditional work.
Contact: K S Haskey PO Box 154 Pedricktown, NJ 08067 ksmh@dandy.net 856-299-7914 301-395-7923 Ksmh@dandy.ne
South Riding (2011)
Cast: Anna Maxwell Martin, David Morrissey and Penelope Wilton
Synopsis (IMDB): Set in the 1930s, Britain is in depression and still scarred by the effects of World War I. Young and passionate Sarah Burton returns to her conservative home-county, bursting with modern ideas. As the new headmistress in South Riding, she inspires her girls –including Lydia Holly, a scholarship student from the slums– to think for themselves. But not everyone sees eye-to-eye with Miss Burton. She finds a few allies, Joe Astell being one; but the sparks really start to fly when she crosses paths with Robert Carne, a haughty landlord whom she despises.
Standing on My Sisters’ Shoulders (2002)
61m; U.S.
Director: Laura J. Lipson
Synopsis (official website): The award-winning documentary “Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders” takes on the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi in the 1950’s and 60’s from the point of view of the courageous women who lived it – and emerged as its grassroots leaders. These women stood up and fought for the right to vote and the right to an equal education. They not only brought about change in Mississippi, but they altered the course of American history.
This documentary presents original interviews with many of the Civil Rights movement’s most remarkable women: Unita Blackwell, a sharecropper turned activist, who became Mississippi’s first female black mayor; Mae Bertha Carter, a mother of 13, whose children became the first to integrate the Drew County schools against dangerous opposition; white student activist Joan Trumpauer Mulholland who not only participated in sit-ins but took a stand on integration by attending an all black university; Annie Devine and Victoria Gray Adams, who, along with Fannie Lou Hamer, stepped up and challenged the Democratic Party and President Johnson at the 1964 Convention.
Contact: http://www.sisters-shoulders.org/film.html
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
Sweatshop Cinderella (2010)
27m; U.S.
Director: Suzanne Wasserman
Synopsis: The story of Anzia Yezierska, a Jewish American writer whose family settled on the Lower East Side, where she toiled in sweatshops and laundries.
Contact: Suzanne Wasserman swasserman@gc.cuny.edu http://gothamcenter.org/cinderella/
Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo (2009)
120m; U.S.
Director: Bradley Beesley
Synopsis: Since 1940, the Oklahoma State Penitentiary has held an annual rodeo in which inmates compete, to the delight of thousands of spectators. Since 2006, female inmates have been allowed to take part. Many of them are young mothers, separated from their families because of drug-related crimes. The rodeo poses the real possibility of lifelong injury, especially for these amateurs with only minimal training, but both women and men participate to relieve the intense boredom of prison life. This two-hour, heartbreaking documentary introduces some of them, and in the process provides a poignant portrait of the inhumanity of the U.S. prison system.
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