128m; U.S.
Director: Daniel Petrie
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil and Ruby Dee
Synopsis (IMDB): Film based on the play by Lorraine Hansberry. Walter Lee Younger is a young man struggling with his station in life. Sharing a tiny apartment with his wife, son, sister and mother, he seems like an imprisoned man. Until, that is, the family gets an unexpected financial windfall…
4m
Director: John Lett
GoIAM.org – Whether it’s a strike or factory floor, former union organizer Ralph Fasanella devoted his life to painting working men and women. The man who is considered America’s best self taught artist, would eventually complete hundreds of pieces of work dedicated to jobs and justice.
Available online
101m; Sweden
Director: Bo Widerberg
Cast: Thommy Berggren, Keve Hjelm and Emy Storm
Synopsis: Portrait of working class youth. Portrays family life in Malmo, Sweden in 1930s, tracing relations between an adolescent boy and his father.
28m; U.S.
Director: Maria Brooks
Synopsis: Workers who rebuilt San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake.
96m; U.K.
Director: Ken Loach
Synopsis: The story of Stevie, a construction worker, and his girlfriend, an unemployed pop singer, serves to show the living conditions of the British working class
92m; U.S.
Director: John David Coles
Cast: Brian Dennehy, Piper Laurie and Graham Beckel
Synopsis (IMDB): A factory foreman with 36 years experience becomes despondent after being laid off by his company which has just been taken over by a Japanese conglomerate and is unable to find any other work. Meanwhile, his son uses his father’s unemployment as an excuse to drop out of the pre-med program his father pressured him to enter.
168m; Italy
Director: Luchino Visconti
Cast: Alain Delon, Renato Salvatori and Annie Girardot
Synopsis (IMDB): The widow Rosaria moves to Milano from Lucania with her 4 sons, one of whom is Rocco. The fifth son, Vincenzo, already lives in Milano. In the beginning, the family has a lot of problems, but everyone manages to find something to do. Simone is boxing, Rocco works in a dry cleaners, and Ciro studies. Simone meets Nadia, a prostitute, and they have a stormy affair. Then Rocco, after finishing his military service, begins a relationship with her. A bitter feud ensues between the two brothers, which will lead as far as murder.
119m; U.S.
Director: John G. Avildsen
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire and Burt Young
Synopsis (IMDB): Rocky Balboa is a struggling boxer trying to make the big time, working as a debt collector for a pittance. When heavyweight champion Apollo Creed visits Philadelphia, his managers want to set up an exhibition match between Creed and a struggling boxer, touting the fight as a chance for a “nobody” to become a “somebody”. The match is supposed to be easily won by Creed, but someone forgot to tell Rocky, who sees this as his only shot at the big time
105m; Italy
Director: Giuseppe de Santis
Cast: Carla Del Poggio, Lucia Bosé, Raf Vallone
Synopsis (Wikipedia): The film is based on a real story, an accident that happened in Rome, when a staircase fell down because of the weight of hundreds of women waiting for a job interview as a secretary
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