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Category Archives: Women

Hull House: The House that Jane Built (1991)

09 Mar

58m; 

Director: Tim Ward

Synopsis: In 1889, amidst the slums of Chicago’s Near West Side, pioneer social worker Jane Addams (1860-1935) opened Hull House to aid the poor, largely immigrant residents of the neighborhood. Addams was joined by several other young women–college educated, politically progressive and highly motivated–whose collective efforts turned Hull House into a major center for social reform activities. This docudrama, featuring Ellen Burstyn as host/narrator, utilizes excerpts from the public writings and private papers of Addams and her associates to tell their remarkable story in their own words.

 
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Posted by on March 9, 2012 in Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Organizing, Women, Working Class

 

I Always Do My Collars First: A Film About Ironing (2007)

09 Mar

25m; 

Synopsis: Four Cajun women in Southwestern Louisiana on what ironing means to them.

 
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Posted by on March 9, 2012 in Documentary, Service Workers, Women, Working Class

 

I Always Dream of Tomorrow (2001)

09 Mar

38m; South Korea

Director: Kim Mi-Re

Synopsis: Women workers in South Korea

Contact: Produced by the Korean Women Workers Associations United and the Korean Women’s Trade Union.

 
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Posted by on March 9, 2012 in Documentary, Global Economy, Women, Working Class

 

Frozen River (2008)

01 Mar

97m; U.S.

Director: Courtney Hunt

Cast:  Melissa Leo, Misty Upham and Charlie McDermott

Synopsis (IMDB): Takes place in the days before Christmas near a little-known border crossing on the Mohawk reservation between New York State and Quebec. Here, the lure of fast money from smuggling presents a daily challenge to single moms who would otherwise be earning minimum wage. Two women – one white, one Mohawk, both single mothers faced with desperate circumstances – are drawn into the world of border smuggling across the frozen water of the St. Lawrence River. Ray and Lila – and a New York State Trooper as opponent in an evolving cat-and-mouse game

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Women, Working Class

 

HERstory – Jeritan (2009)

01 Mar

74m

Director: Cecilia Ho Wing Yin

Synopsis (CLiFF): A story of Indonesian female migrant workers who left their homes to work as domestic helpers in Macao, China, a community consisting mainly of Chinese as well as a city of casinos and entertainment parlours.

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Migrant workers, Women

 

Homebound (Balikbayan) [2003]

01 Mar

5m

Directors: Larilyn Sanchez, Riza Manalo

Synopsis (IFFR): A woman who works outside the Philippines to earn money for her family sees herself forced to send her mother back home alone. She can’t pay for her own journey, but as compensation she gives her mother gifts from the rich world.

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Experimental, Migrant workers, Women

 

Hammering It Out: Women in the Construction Zone (2000)

01 Mar

54m; U.S.

Director: Vivian Price

Synopsis: Female construction workers.

Contact: www.hammeringitout.com; Vivian Price vprice@csudh.edu/blues3@verizon.net; Women Make Movies 212-925-0606 ADDRESS: C/O Susanne Davis 2225 East Ocean Blvd Long Beach CA 90803

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Construction Trades, Documentary, Women, Working Class

 

Harlan County War (2000)

01 Mar

104m; U.S.

Director: Tony Bill

Cast: Holly Hunter, Stellan Skarsgård and Ted Levine

Synopsis (IMDB): A Kentucky woman whose mine-worker husband is nearly killed in a cave-in, and whose father is slowly dying of black lung disease, joins the picket lines for a long, violent strike.

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Organizing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Women, Working Class

 

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Hashiye Par Zindagi (Life on the Margin) [2002]

01 Mar

Director: Arun Kumar

Synopsis (HRFF): In 1994 the “upper” caste militias [in Bihar, a State of eastern India] coalesced to form the highly armed Ranvir Sena under the leadership of the Bhumihar caste and masterminded nearly a dozen massacres to quell the emerging movement of the poor and the landless. A section of the Left, known as the People’s War and Maoist Communist Centre, parallely killed upper caste landlords in championing its cause for the lowly and the deprived.

Hashiye Par Zindagi – Life on the Margin documents the voices of widows of these massacres in the State. The women filmed represent both the “lower” and the “upper” castes of Bihar. The film tries to bring out what women think of killings; how they cope with loneliness, hunger and insecurity after the incident. They also tell us what they see as a possible way out from the current quagmire of violence.

The film has been made by the Violence Mitigation and Amelioration Project (VMAP). It is central to a State-wide campaign against violence, initiated in Bihar a year ago. It has to date, been watched by over 50,000 people. It is hoped that the Campaign will start a debate on the futility of violence.

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Women

 

Hester Street (1975)

01 Mar

90m; U.S.

Director: Joan Micklin Silver

Cast: Steven Keats, Carol Kane and Mel Howard

Synopsis: It’s 1896. Yankel Bogovnik, a Russian Jew, emigrated to the United States three years earlier and has settled where many of his background have, namely on Hester Street on the Lower East Side of New York City. He has assimilated to American life, having learned English, anglicized his name to Jake, and shaved off his beard. He is working at a $12/week job as a seamster, the money earned to be able to bring his wife Gitl and his son Yossele to America from Russia. Regardless, he has fallen in love with another woman, a dancer named Mamie Fein. Nonetheless, he is excited when he learns that Gitl and Yossele are indeed coming to America. His happiness at their arrival is dampened when he sees that Gitl is not “American” looking like Mamie and has troubles assimilating as quickly as he would like. Except to Mamie, he tries to show a public façade that everything is fine at home with Gitl. But can their marriage survive these differences, and if not, will Gitl be able to manage in this new land where she has few supports?

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Women, Working Class

 
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