55M; U.S.
Director: Morgan Spurlock
Cast: Morgan Spurlock
30 Days TV series (FX) creator Morgan Spurlock returns to his home state of West Virginia, to work as a rookie apprentice coalminer known as a “redhat” for 30 days. He also takes a little time to socialize with the miners and their families, and briefly explores the problems of mountaintop removal mining and the destruction of both the environment and the coal miners’ health.
112m; China
Director: Jia Zhangke
Stars: Jianbin Chen, Joan Chen and Liping Lü
Follows three generations of characters in Chengdu (in the 1950s, the 1970s and the present day) as a state-owned factory gives way to a modern apartment complex.
Cinema Guild, Ryan Krivoshey: rkrivoshey@cinemaguild.com
“Change and a city in China. In Chengdu, factory 420 is being pulled down to make way for multi-story buildings with luxury flats. Scenes of factory operations, of the workforce, and of buildings stripped bare and then razed, are inter-cut with workers who were born in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s telling their stories – about the factory, which manufactured military aircraft, and about their work and their lives. A middle-aged man visits his mentor, now elderly; a woman talks of being a 19-year-old beauty there and ending up alone. The film concludes with two young people talking, each the child of workers, each relaying a story of one visit to a factory. Times change.” IMDB; written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>
245m; Italy
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring: Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu and Dominique Sanda
Set in Italy, the film follows the lives and interactions of two boys/men, one born a bastard of peasant stock (Depardieu), the other born to a land owner (de Niro). The drama spans from 1900 to about 1945, and focuses mainly on the rise of Fascism and the peasants’ eventual reaction by supporting Communism, and how these events shape the destinies of the two main characters.
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