29m; U.S.
Synopsis: Educational film tracing the history of labor and the Teamsters.
Category Archives: Documentary
United Action: Story of the GM Tool & Die Strike 1939 (1940)
33m; U.S.
Director: Michael Martini
Up the Ridge (2007)
55m; U.S.
Director: Nick Szuberla and Amelia Kirby
Synopsis: In 1999 Szuberla and Kirby were volunteer DJ’s for the Appalachian region’s only hip-hop radio program in Whitesburg, KY when they received hundreds of letters from inmates transferred into nearby Wallens Ridge, the region’s newest prison built to prop up the shrinking coal economy. The letters described human rights violations and racial tension between staff and inmates. Filming began that year and, though the lens of Wallens Ridge State Prison, the program offers viewers an in-depth look at the United States prison industry and the social impact of moving hundreds of thousands of inner-city minority offenders to distant rural outposts. The film explores competing political agendas that align government policy with human rights violations, and political expediencies that bring communities into racial and cultural conflict with tragic consequences. Connections exist, in both practice and ideology, between human rights violations in Abu Ghraib and physical and sexual abuse recorded in American prisons.
Uprising of 1934
How could such a pivotal moment in American history be kept a secret for 60 years? Textile workers recall with pride the long-supressed story of the General Textile Strike of 1934 when 500,000 Southern mill laborers walked off their jobs. George Stoney, Judith Helfand and Susanne Rostock’s probing film explores how the strike still impacts labor, power and economics in the South today.
http://www.pbs.org/pov/uprisingof34/
Uprooted: Refugees of the Global Economy
28m;
Synopsis: The compelling tale of those forced by the global economy to leave their home countries.
Useless (Wu yong) [2007]
80m; China
Director: Zhang Ke Jia
Cast: Ke Ma
Synopsis: Portrait of the unusual Chinese fashion designer Ma Ke, who incorporates the natural process of growth and decay in her clothes. But Jia goes further: in an elegant way he juxtaposes Ma Ke with mass production, but also places her in the tradition of small village dressmakers. Part two in his ‘Trilogy of Artists’.
Vale Inco’s CEO Roger Fuhrer Looses His Fight For Domination Over Workers (2009)
3.5m; U.S.
Director: Alain Sauve
Synopsis: A satirical look behind the scenes of Vale Incos management group as they do battle with the Local 6500 United Steel Workers Union. The strike has lasted 6 months and counting. Vale has weathered a recession and through it all has continued to be profitable, yet it demands concessions form workers. The workers have resisted these concessions and is locked in an epic battle with the greedy multinational.
Contact: Alain Sauve jackhammer111@msn.com
Valley Town (1940)
27m; U.S.
Director: Willard Van Dyke
Synopsis: This social documentary that premiered at the Steel Workers’ Organizing Committee’s convention in Chicago in May 1940 portrays life in New Castle, Pa., during the Great Depression. Unemployment and poverty transformed the town and its people as automation made its impact in the steel industry. Because of what was considered an anticorporate view, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which funded the film, withdrew it from release and redid the film. Two very different versions, the original director’s cut and the remake, exist.
Vinegar In The Valley (2009)
Director: Robin Hartwig, Zac Minor and Zac Petrillo
Producer: The National Steinbeck Center
Year: 2009
Country of Origin: USA
Time: 21:27 min.
Description: Charts the rise of the United Farm Workers movement, the rise to power of Cesar Chavez and its impact on the Salinas Valley during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Looks at the conflict from all sides by interviewing growers, union members and others. A strong student production.
THE LABOR FILM DATABASE 