55m; U.S.
Director: Lee Grant
Synopsis (IMDB): Risking jobs, friends, family and the opposition of church and community, eight unassuming women begin the longest bank strike in American history.
Category Archives: Documentary
Windows (2002)
22m; U.S.
Director: David Koff
Synopsis: Immigrant workers die 9/11 in Trade Tower disaster.
Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afganistan (2008)
65m; U.S.
Synopsis: Iraq Veterans Against the War testify about the atrocities they witnessed while deployed in the occupations of Afganistan & Iraq.
Contact: http://www.IVAW.org
With Babies and Banners (1978)
45m; U.S.
Director: Lorraine W. Gray
Synopsis (IMDB): From December 1936 to February 1937 members of the United Auto Workers organized a sit-down strike inside the General Motors Fisher Body 1 and 2 plants in Flint, Michigan. They ultimately won recognition of their union and improved wages and conditions. “With Babies and Banners” tells the story of the Women’s Emergency Brigade, composed of female GM workers and the wives of men involved in the sit-down strike, which not only provided support services (like running the union kitchens that provided food to the strikers occupying the plants) but did picket duty themselves. It intercuts footage from 1937 with interviews with the same women 40 years later, still active in union politics and still pressuring the UAW to acknowledge women as equals.
Director/Producer/Creator/Executive Producer/National & International distributor of the documentary films by Lorraine W Gray: With Babies & Banners and The Global Assembly Line.
With These Hands: The Story Of An American Furniture Factory (2009)
80m; U.S.
Director: Matthew Barr
Synopsis: In March 2007, unable to compete with cheaper offshore production, Hooker Furniture Company closed its plant in Martinsville, Virginia, after 83 years in operation. “With These Hands” follows the last load of kiln-dried wood down the assembly line as it is cut, honed, and assembled into fine furniture. Along the way, employees at the factory share their perspectives on work, community, and survival in a country devastated by deindustrialization and outsourcing.
Contact: Matthew Barr Associate Professor Department of Broadcasting and Cinema (336) 334-3887 m_barr@uncg.edu
With a Stroke of the Chaveta (Con el toque de la chaveta) [2007]
28m; Cuba
Director: Pamela Sporn
Synopsis: Takes viewers into the legendary cigar factories of Cuba where we witness the unique tradition of ‘la lectura de tabaqueria’, the collective reading of literature while tabaqueros roll habanos.
Contact: raicescubanas@aol.com 917-921-8678 (Cell)
English subtitles throughout
distributed by Grito Productions: http://www.gritoproductions.com
Description
With a Stroke of the Chaveta is a poetic documentary short (28 minutes) that leaves us wondering where to draw the line between “worker” and “intellectual.” From the middle of the 1800s to the early 1900s lectores, or readers, were an integral part of the world of cigar workers in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Florida, and New York. Through “la lectura,” or reading, communities of cigar workers were entertained, educated, and developed a sense of class solidarity.
The voice of the cigar makers’ beloved lector is but a whisper in most places. How has the tradition of factory readings survived in Cuba?
Con el toque de la chaveta (With a Stroke of the Chaveta) takes viewers into the legendary cigar factories of Cuba to witness the unique practice of “la lectura de tabaquería”, the collective reading of literature while tabaqueros roll habanos. From “lectores” Odalys, Aguila and Gricel we learn about the challenges of meeting the expectations of a knowledgeable and demanding workforce and the satisfaction of receiving the applause of hundreds of “chavetas” in unison. Cigar makers inform us that they can’t imagine working without a reader to accompany them.
Credits
Directed and Produced by Pam Sporn
Camera: Rigoberto Senarega Madruga
Editor: Pam Sporn
Festival Screenings and Prizes
First Prize: Festival del Habano Film Festival, Havana, 2012
Best Documentary Short: Cine Las Americas Film Festival, Austin,Texas, 2008
Festival internacional del nuevo cine latinoamericano, Havana
Maysles Cinema, Harlem, NY
Chicago International Latino Film Festival
London International Documentary Film Festival
Gasparilla Film Festival, Tampa, Florida
Los Angeles International Latino Film Festival
Quote from a review: Pam Sporn’s engaging documentary, Con el toque de la chaveta, provides a revealing contemporary view of a thriving cultural institution, created by and for workers long before the Cuban revolution.
Robert Ingalls, Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida
Co-author (with Louis A. Perez, Jr.) of Tampa Cigar Workers: A Pictorial History
Witness to the Harvest Pilgrims (2009)
10m; Canada
Director: Vincenzo Pietropaolo
Synopsis: A short documentary featuring the work of acclaimed photographer and social activist Vincenzo Pietropaolo, who has spent the last 25 years capturing images of farm workers and their struggle for justice, diginity and respect.
Wittstock, Wittstock (1997)
Running Time: 117 Minutes
Country: Germany
Genre: Documentary
Director – Volker Koepp
Screenplay – Volker Koepp
Producer – Herbert Kruschke
Three East German women spend over twenty years at a textile mill in Wittstock only to find themselves jobless shortly after the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1990. In telling their tragic story, this provocative documentary–begun by filmmaker Volker Koepp and his cameraman Christian Lehmann in 1974 and finished in 1996–offers a critical look at the downside of Germany’s reunification. In 1974, the three women, Renata, Elizabeth and Edith were all young woman working in the Wittstock textile mill. The filmmakers return to the women in 1983. By this time, the women have matured and experienced marriages, divorces and had children. Their hard work at the mill has paid off and each has been promoted. In 1990, following the demise of the Wall, their heretofore contented lives are destroyed when their company is purchased by Fashion Ltd and massive downsizing efforts begin. Women are the primary targets, especially those who make a fuss. Within a year, all three women are unemployed and struggling to find new jobs. The film rejoins them in 1993 and finds that things have not improved. By 1996, the unemployment level has reached 90% and things look bleak for the women, who despite the poor economic prognosis continue struggling to find new jobs. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
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