28m; U.S.
Director: Charles Chaplin
Cast: Charles Chaplin, Phyllis Allen and Mack Swain
Synopsis (IMDB): Charlie is an expert bricklayer. He has lots of fun and work and enjoys himself greatly while at the saloon. As he leaves work his wife takes the pay he has hidden in his hat. But he steals her purse so he can go out for the evening. He has a terrible time getting home on a very rainy night. When he does so he finds his wife waiting for him with a rolling pin.
75m; France
Director: Robert Bresson
Cast: Martin LaSalle, Marika Green and Jean Pélégri
Synopsis: Michel is released from jail after serving a sentence for thievery. His mother dies and he resorts to pickpocketing as a means of survival.
101m; U.K.
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Terence Stamp, Carol White and John Bindon
Synopsis (IMDB): A young woman lives a life filled with bad choices. She marries and has a child with an abusive thief at a young age who quickly ends up in prison. Left alone she takes up with his mate (another thief) who seems to give her some happiness but who also ends up in the nick. She then takes up with a series of seedy types who offer nothing but momentary pleasure. Her son goes missing and she briefly comes to grips with what is most important to her.
90m; Uruguay
Director: César Charlone, Enrique Fernández
Cast: César Troncoso, Virginia Méndez and Mario Silva
Synopsis (IMDB): In Melo, a poor Uruguayan country village near the Brazilian border, several men earn their living from contraband, mostly transported on bicycles. One of them, Beto, is getting too old for heavy freights but hopes to a earn a motorbike. The idea is to build and charge money for the use of a proper lavatory at the occasion of the first-ever papal visit to Uruguay, as is holiness is expected to pass trough Melo where he may be cheered by hordes of Catholic Brazilians.
103m; Cuba
Director: Pastor Vega
Cast: Idalia Anreus, Miguel Benavides and Samuel Claxton
Synopsis (IMDB): Teresa is overwhelmed: with a husband, three young sons, a job as a crew leader in a textile factory, and volunteer commitments as cultural leader of her union. Her husband, Ramón, wants more of her attention; her feelings are mixed, wanting domestic peace, feeling responsibilities to the revolution, and wanting to control her own life beyond doing dirty dishes. They separate; he begins an affair. When he wants a reconciliation, she asks what his response would be if she’d had an affair too. “But men are different,” is his reply. He’s failed her test, and to hold on to independence and self-respect, she remains uncompromising and hard-edged.
15m; U.S.
Synopsis: Before the recent tragedy in Ferrell No. 17, Madison, Boone County, filmmakers for National Geographic’s new series, Community Life In America, made a film on the Marcum family. Marcus was charged with the deaths of several miners as a result of a gas explosion. Lawyers for the prosecuting attorney watched the film at The WV Cultural Center. Besides working as a shift manager Tom Marcum and family enjoy fishing and camping. Basic facts about coal mining are shown along with the lifestyle of coalmining families in WV. Access: 16 mm only, WVLC
52m; U.S.
Director: Renée Bergan and Mark Schuller
Cast: Marie-Jeanne Solange Frisline Thérèse Hélène
Synopsis: The compelling lives of five courageous Haitian women workers give the global economy a human face. Each woman’s personal story explains neoliberal globalization, how it is gendered, and how it impacts Haiti: inhumane working/living conditions, violence, poverty, lack of education, and poor health care. While the film offers in-depth understanding of Haiti, its focus on women’s subjugation, worker exploitation, poverty, and resistance demonstrates these are global struggles. Finally, through their collective activism, these women demonstrate that despite monumental obstacles in a poor country like Haiti, collective action makes change possible.
Contact: TÈT ANSANM PRODUCTIONS 139 Clinton Ave. #4, Brooklyn, NY 11205 347-599-1116 (phone/fax) info@potomitan.net
21m
Director: Blaine Dunlap
Synopsis (Southeast Media Preservation Lab): Portrait of Stanley Maupin, sidewalk flusher on the late-night streets of Dallas, Texas. Filmed in the winter of 1972-1973.
Website: http://analoglab.drupalgardens.com/content/sometimes-i-run
52m
Director: Bill Morrison
Synopsis (REDCAT): Since The Film of Her (1996), award-winning filmmaker Bill Morrison has completed more than 20 experimental pieces in which he poetically and rhythmically reworks archival footage in various stages of preservation or decomposition. With The Miners’ Hymns, he teams up with Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson to celebrate the culture and political struggles of the Durham collieries in northeastern England. Weaving together stunning black-and-white footage from the early 1900s through the massive 1984 strikes, the film montages different aspects of the miners’ lives—the hardship of pit work, the role of the trade unions, the tradition of the colliery brass bands and the annual Miners’ Gala in Durham.
Website: http://billmorrisonfilm.com/feature-length-films/the-miners-hymns
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