50m; Colombia
Director: Silvia Maria Hoyos
Synopsis: Stories of Five Workers Under Threat In Colombia.
Category Archives: Documentary
Debs (1978)
30m; U.S.
Director: Bernard Sanders and Nancy Barnett
Synopsis: Biography of Eugene V. Debs and his relation to unionism and American social history.
A Decent Factory (2004)
79m
Director: Thomas Balmès
Synopsis (Icarus Films): In an increasingly globalized economy, more corporations are ‘outsourcing’ their production to countries with cheaper labor costs and less legal protection of workers’ rights. Some corporate managers, whether out of sincere moral concern or because they must respond to the considerations of investors and shareholders, are attempting to balance profit-making with social morality.
A Decent Factory focuses on such an effort by Nokia, the Finnish electronics firm, which sends a team led by two business ethics advisors to examine conditions at a Chinese factory that supplies parts to Nokia. Filmmaker Thomas Balmès, having conducted three years of research on the subject, follows them on their investigative journey.
Defying the Law (1997)
47m; Canada
Director: Marta Nielsen-Hastings, David Wesley, Micheal Allder
Synopsis: On July 14, 1946, a group of steelworkers poured out of Hamilton’s Playhouse Theatre and set up pickets around the country’s largest steel mill. Their action sparked one of the most important strikes in our country’s history – a strike which many consider to be the birth of the modern labour movement.
Contact: National Film Board of Canada
http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=33367
The Democratic Promise: Saul Alinsky and His Legacy (2009)
56m; U.S.
Director: Bob Hercules & Bruce Orenstein
Synopsis: Legendary organizer Saul Alinsky led the movement to empower disenfranchised communities through collective actions. Now others have taken up the challenge. The film examines Alinsky’s life and adaptive legacy through work being done by two contemporary “people’s organizations.” Case studies of his work in Rochester and recent IAF organizing work in Texas and Brooklyn.
The Deported (2007)
22m; South Korea
Director: Musgtaque Ahmed
Synopsis: Struggle of Bangladeshi and Nepali workers in South Korea and the effects of the government crackdown on these immigrant workers.
Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class (2005)
62m
Director: Loretta Alper
Synopsis (Media Education Foundation): Based on the forthcoming book by Pepi Leistyna, Class Dismissed navigates the steady stream of narrow working class representations from American television’s beginnings to today’s sitcoms, reality shows, police dramas, and daytime talk shows.
Featuring interviews with media analysts and cultural historians, this documentary examines the patterns inherent in TV’s disturbing depictions of working class people as either clowns or social deviants — stereotypical portrayals that reinforce the myth of meritocracy. :
Website: http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=411
The Detroit Model (1980)
45m; U.S.
Director: Alan Levin
Synopsis: Study of the decline of the US auto industry in the 1970s and early 80s.
Detroit Workers News (1932)
20m; U.S.
Director: Workers Film and Photo League
Synopsis: The only newsreel coverage of the historic mass march in downtown Detroit in 1932, against the policies of Hoover, and the armed attack by Dearborn police and Ford guards at the unemployed workers at teh gates of the River Rouge plant.
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