Directed by: Peter Miller
Running Time: 1 hr 34 min
Starring: N/A
Website: http://www.montereymedia.com/nogodnomaster/
Synopsis: The story of two Italian immigrant radicals who were executed in 1927 offers insights into present-day issues of civil liberties and the rights of immigrants.
Directed by: Leo Hurwitz & Paul Strand
Running Time: 1hr 20 min
Starring: N/A
Website
Synopsis:In dramatizations, we see a farmer beaten for speaking up at a meeting, a union man murdered in a boarding house, two sharecroppers near Fort Smith Arkansas shot by men deputized by the local sheriff, a spy stealing the names of union members, and a dead Chicago union man eulogized.
A combination of a documentary format and staged reenactments, the film depicted the struggle of trade unions against union-busting corporations, their spies and contractors. It was based on the 1938 report of the La Follette Committee‘s investigation of the repression of labor organizing.
Famous African-American singer, actor and activist Paul Robeson participated as an off-screen narrator and vocalist.
Directed by: Lee Grant
Running Time: 50 min
Starring: N/A
Website: http://www.newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0108
Synopsis: The Willmar 8 is Academy Award winner Lee Grant’s documentary about working women which has been featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, excerpted on 60 Minutes, and was broadcast nationally by PBS. The film tells the story of eight unassuming, apolitical women in America’s heartland–Willmar, Minnesota–who were driven by sex discrimination at work to take the most unexpected step of their lives and found themselves in the forefront of the struggle for women’s rights. Risking jobs, friends, family and the opposition of church and community, they began the longest bank strike in American history in a dramatic attempt to assert their own equality and self-worth
Directed by: G eorge Stoney, Judith Helfand, and Susanne Rostock
Running Time: 88 min
Starring: N/A
Website: http://www.der.org/films/uprising-of-34.html
Synopsis: The Uprising of ’34 is a startling documentary which tells the story of the General Strike of 1934, a massive but little-known strike by hundreds of thousands of Southern cotton mill workers during the Great Depression. The mill workers’ defiant stance — and the remarkable grassroots organizing that led up to it — challenged a system of mill owner control that had shaped life in cotton mill communities for decades. Sixty years after the government brutally suppressed the strike, a dark cloud still hangs over this event, spoken of only in whispers if at all.
Through the voices of those on all sides, The Uprising of ’34 paints a rare portrait of the dynamics of life in mill communities, offering a penetrating look at class, race, and power in working communities throughout America and inviting the viewer to consider how those issues affect us today. The film raises critical questions about the critical role of history in making democracy work today.
Directed by: Elizabeth Barrett
Running Time: 58 min
Starring: N/A
Website: http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c579.shtml
Synopsis: In the coal-mining heart of Appalachia’s “poverty belt,” where residents have felt alternately aided and assaulted by media exposure, the 1967 murder of filmmaker Hugh O’Connor still stirs strong community feelings.
Directed by: Lourdes Portillo
Running Time: 74 min
Starring: N/A
Website: http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c579.shtml
Synopsis: SENORITA EXTRAVIADA, MISSING YOUNG WOMAN tells the haunting story of the more than 350 kidnapped, raped and murdered young women of Juárez, Mexico. Visually poetic, yet unflinching in its gaze, this compelling investigation unravels the layers of complicity that have allowed for the brutal murders of women living along the Mexico-U.S. border. In the midst of Juárez’s international mystique and high profile job market, there exists a murky history of grossly underreported human rights abuses and violence against women. The climate of violence and impunity continues to grow, and the murders of women continue to this day. Relying on what Portillo comes to see as the most reliable of sources – the testimonies of the families of the victims –SEÑORITA EXTRAVIADA, MISSING YOUNG WOMAN documents a two-year search for the truth in the underbelly of the new global economy. An Independent Television Service (ITVS) Production.
Directed by: Anne Lewis
Running Time: 57 min
Starring: N/A
Website: https://www.appalshop.org/store/appalshop-films/rough-side-of-the-mountain/
Synopsis: Over the past twenty years, manufacturing plants and mining companies have closed throughout rural America, often leaving behind communities with crumbling infrastructures, widespread unemployment, and inexperience in self-governance. Such was the case in two hard hit southwest Virginia towns Trammel and Ivanhoe. In 1986 Trammel attracted national attention as the privately owned town whose 50 homes, company store, post office, and water and cable systems were put on the auction block. Rough Side of the Mountain follows the story as local residents, mostly unemployed and disabled, organized with the help of churches and foundations to purchase the auctioned homes and save their town. In Ivanhoe, the program profiles the efforts of the Ivanhoe Civic League as community members attempt to rebuild after the loss of two major industries, the school, and local businesses. Rough Side of the Mountain looks at grassroots community organizing and the steel ceiling encountered by many poor rural communities as they struggle to develop new economies in an increasingly global system.
Directed by: Elizabeth Barrett
Running Time: 28 min
Starring: N/A
Website: https://www.appalshop.org/store/appalshop-films/quilting-women/
Synopsis: Quilting Women traces the process of traditional Appalachian quilting, from cutting out and piecing together the patterns to the quilting bee. Quilters comment on the origins of the generations-old patterns, the time and patience required, the satisfaction of accomplishment, the quilts as art, and the companionship offered by women working together over a quilting frame.
Directed by: Lyn Goldfarb and Tami Gold
Running Time: 30 min
Starring: N/A
Website: http://andersongoldfilms.com/films/documentaries/pfc.htm
Synopsis: traditionally female, underpaid and under-appreciated. This documentary presents a rare behind-the-scenes look at nursing. Produced over ten years ago – before prime-time’s ER and CHICAGO HOPE – this documentary has a clear feminist perspective and continues to be refreshing and relevant.
Directed by: Dianne Griffin and Erica Jordan
Running Time: 57 min
Starring: N/A
Website: http://www.paintednailsmovie.com/
Synopsis: The cosmetic industry is one of the fastest growing in the US, and health regulations for it are almost non-existent. This puts at risk the over 80% of licensed US manicurists who are Vietnamese immigrants, Van Nguyen included. The salon Van owns with her husband feels like a second home, but she is hesitant for her daughter to spend time there, fearing the adverse effects of product chemicals. Van herself suffers from headaches, memory loss, and has had trouble bringing other pregnancies to term, but continues to work morning until night every day. Determined to make her salon a safer place, Van takes her story to Washington D.C. and becomes one of the first to testify for safe cosmetics in over 30 years. Replete with tender yet insightful moments, Painted Nails strips the polish from an issue that touches everyone.
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