29m; India/Denmark
Director: Jens Pedersen
Synopsis: Manual scavengers in India and ‘the most disgusting job on earth’-picking up human excreta with one’s bare hands.
Contact: jjp@net.dialog.dk (+45) 40757172 (Work)
Category Archives: Documentary
YAMA, Attack to Attack! (1986)
110m; Japan
Director: Sato Mitsuo / Yamaoka Kyoichi
Synopsis: In Tokyo the area stretching from Taito Ward to Arakawa Ward was formerly called Sanya. (Locals refer to this area as “Yama”.) Today, Sanya is a place where day laborers come together to live and find work. These laborers usually do what their employers tell them, and are often targets for exploitation by yakuza gangsters and right-wing groups. But the workers decided to form a labor union and begin to fight for improved working conditions, and it was this that director Sato Mitsuo tried to capture with his camera. However, the strike became a violent clash between workers and gangsters, and on the eleventh day of filming Sato was stabbed to death by a member of the yakuza. After the funeral was over, and the confusion of not having a director had passed, the task of completing the film passed on to Yamaoka Kyoichi (a key player in the labor disputes), and the production and exhibition committee. This film takes us around the country to several gathering places in Kotobuki-cho, Kamagasaki, Sasajima, and Fukuoka, showing us the struggle for the cause of day laborers who are dying in poverty. We are also taken to the mining community of Chikuho, which is where many of the laborers come from. Returning to Sanya, we see once more the continuing struggle taking place there, tied together with the symbolic image of the rising sun. Unfortunately, after filming was completed, and just prior to the premiere screening, the second director Yamaoka Kyoichi was shot to death. Both directors of this film were murdered.
You May Call Her Madam Secretary
58m; U.S.
Director: Robert & Marjory Potts
Synopsis: Biography of the first woman cabinet secretary and “mother” of Social Security, Frances Perkins.
You, Me & The SPP (2009)
91m; Canada
Director: Paul Manly
Synopsis (IMDB): You, Me, and the S.P.P: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule is a feature length documentary which exposes the corporatist agenda of the Security Prosperity Partnership, that is currently undermining the democratic authority of the citizens of North America
Your Loan is Denied (1992)
Synopsis: From Frontline, this production looks at the discriminatory practices by the banks of America and the dire consequences that result when the foremost mortgage-lending institutes set their loan protocol based on any color other than green. Brought to video by PBS, correspondent Bill Schechner introduces two African-American professionals, Peter and Dolores Green who are suing a Chicago area bank for refusing to finance the purchase of the home they have lived in for 30 years. In association with the Center for Investigative Reporting, this documentary shows the tragic effects of racial bias as entire neighborhoods find themselves fighting for economic survival.
AbUSed: The Postville Raid (2010)
96m; U.S.
Director: Luis Argueta
Synopsis (IMDB): It is at once an epic story of survival, hope, and humble aspirations, of triumph, defeat, and rebirth. The face of immigration is revealed through the gripping personal stories of the individuals, the families, and the town that survived the most brutal, most expensive, and the largest immigration raid in the history of the United States.
eDump (2008)
20m; U.S.
Director: Michael Zhao
Synopsis: Poor countries like China and India are the victims of a nasty electronic waste dumping business. E-waste brokers make money by polluting the environment and harming public health in trash towns like Guiyu, Guangdong.
Contact: http://MichaelZhao.net zhaoyunfeng78@gmail.com
Crossing the American Crises: From Collapse to Action (2011)
82m; U.S.
Director: Silvia Leindecker & Michael Fox
Synopsis: This documentary explores two major developments in recent U.S. history. The first is the impact that the September 2008 financial crisis had on ordinary working people throughout the country. The second is the response of working people to the crises affecting them, including their reaction to the government’s bailouts and Obama’s election. Particular attention is devoted to the emergence of progressive grass-roots movements such as the Vermont Workers’ Center, the Green Worker Cooperative in the Bronx, the Santa Fe Alliance in New Mexico, and the Iraq Veterans Against the War. The film’s overall theme is that the recent economic collapse indicates that it is “the people” themselves who must organize and act to bring about greater economic and social justice. Discussion will follow the film, with comments by Occupy Pittsburgh participants and others.
Food Stamped (2011)
62m; U.S.
Director: Shirah & Yoav Potash
Synopsis: This timely documentary provides important accurate information about the food stamp program in the U.S., and it does so with some humor. The movie’s premise is a challenge: Can a nutrition educator and her husband, let alone anyone else eat healthy and well for a week if they live on the budget accorded food-stamp recipients? In addition to recording the couple’s experiences as they try to meet the challenge, the film presents basic facts about the program, examines the nutritional value of school lunches, cites conflicts between industrial food producers and organic farmers, and highlights the various problems that applicants and those on food stamps face.
Sick Around the World (2008)
56m; U.S.
Synopsis: In the Frontline documentary, Sick Around the World, T. R. Reid, a Washington Post correspondent, raises the controversial and timely issue of how America’s heath care system might be improved. The filmmakers chose to investigate healthcare in five advanced industrialized capitalist countries instead of nations where “socialized” medicine is the norm. By providing Americans with valuable but little known information about the successes and failures of health care in the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, and Switzerland, it offers a base of comparison for progressive health care reform in the U.S
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