110m; U.K.
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: David Bradley, Brian Glover and Freddie Fletcher
Synopsis (IMDB): A young, English working-class boy spends his free time caring for and training his pet falcon.
Category Archives: Working Class
Killer of Sheep (1977)
83m; U.S.
Director: Charles Burnett
Cast: Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore and Charles Bracy
Synopsis: Killer of Sheep examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse.
Frustrated by money problems, he finds respite in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a coffee cup against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife in the living room, holding his daughter. The film offers no solutions; it merely presents life — sometimes hauntingly bleak, sometimes filled with transcendent joy and gentle humor.
Kings (2007)
88m; Ireland
Director: Tom Collins
Cast: Colm Meaney, Donal O’Kelly and Brendan Conroy
Synopsis: In the twenty five years they have been there, done that, the Navvy (Irish working man) clock does not stop for alienation or inner despair. They are working men, strong even indestructible. Those gnawing feelings of something not being quite right are ameliorated by the camaraderie of their mates. So what if it all ends in tears or a thumping. They can give as good as they get or used to. At least they are alive and having the craic. Until it all changes, and a silence falls on the reverie of the gang. Tragedy has struck Jackie the youngest, the brightest and the bravest. The gang does what has always been done – they gather together for a Wake, a final celebration, a cheer, to give Jackie Flavin a send off fit for a king, a king of the Kilburn High Road. He, unlike them is set to return to Ireland – his body found bruised and battered on the railway track, crushed by the passing Kilburn train
Kinky Boots (2005)
107m; U.K.
Director: Julian Jarrold
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Joel Edgerton, Sarah-Jane Potts
Synopsis (IMDB): A drag queen comes to the rescue of a man who, after inheriting his father’s shoe factory, needs to diversify his product if he wants to keep the business afloat.
Kuhle Wampe (1932)
71m; Germany
Director: Slatan Dudow
Synopsis: Fragmented vignettes combine to make a political statement about working class potential in Germany, just before it was blocked by Fascism.
L’America (1994)
116m; Italy
Director: Gianni Amelio
Cast: Enrico Lo Verso, Michele Placido and Piro Milkani
Synopsis: (IMDB): Two Italian racketeers come to Albania just after the fall of the communists to set up a fictive firm and pocket the grants. They need a stooge. They choose an old one in a jail : Spiro. But the youngest italian, Gino, once alone with Spiro, encounter a few problems. Far from his roots, loosing his identity in deep Albania, he begins to change…
L’Atalante (1934)
89m; France
Director: Jean Vigo
Synopsis: Portrait of couple and the crew of a cargo boat on the Seine. When separated, the women finds a job and survives and the man falls apart.
L’enfant (The Infant) [2005]
95m; Belgium
Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Cast: Jérémie Renier, Déborah François and Jérémie Segard
Synopsis: Bruno and Sonia, a young couple living off her benefit and the thefts committed by his gang, have a new source of money: their newborn son.
Ironweed (1987)
143m; U.S.
Director: Hector Babenco
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep and Carroll Baker
Synopsis (IMDB): A schizophrenic drifter spends Halloween in his home town after returning there for the first time in decades.
It All Starts Today (2001)
France
Director: Bertrand Tavernier
Synopsis: Depressed coalmining region of France
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