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Category Archives: Documentary

Rising from the Rails: The Story of the Pullman Porter

26 Apr

47m; U.S.

Director: Brad Osborne

Director: Glenn Bradley, Lindsey Holloway and Evan Mason

Synopsis: RISING FROM THE RAILS: THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN PORTER, a documentary based on the best-selling book by Larry Tye, chronicles the relatively unheralded Pullman Porters, generations of African American men who served as caretakers to wealthy white passengers on luxury trains that traversed the nation during the golden age of rail. Unbeknownst to most of their white passengers, porters played critical political and cultural roles, becoming trailblazers in the struggle for African American dignity and self-sufficiency, patriarchs of black labor unions, and helping give birth to the Civil Rights Movement. Ultimately, however, their greatest legacy is that which they left to future generations.

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2012 in Blacks, Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Labor History, Organizing, Transportation, Working Class

 

The River Ran Red

26 Apr

Director: Steffi Domike and Nicole Fauteux.

Synopsis: Blair Brown narrates this gripping account of a community’s struggle to preserve its way of life. In the summer of 1892, a bitter conflict erupted at the Carnegie Works in Homestead, Pennsylvania. The nation’s largest steelmaker took on its most militant labor union, with devastating consequences for American workers. Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick head a fascinating cast of characters which includes 300 armed Pinkerton guards, and the would-be assassin, anarchist Alexander Berkman. To evoke the strike and its century old legacy, the film employs documentary techniques, primary sources, dramatically staged scenes shot on location in the Pittsburgh area, and lyrical commentary found in poetry, song and fiction.

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Labor History, Organizing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

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Rocking the Foundations (1986)

26 Apr

92m; Australia

Director: Pat Fiske

Synopsis: Australian documentary about the New South Wales Builders’ Labourers’ Federation, 1940-1975 — a union that broke the rules.

Contact: Ronin Films PO Box 1005 Civic Square Canberra, ACT 2608 Australia Phn: +61 2 6248 0851 Fax: +61 2 6249 1640 http://www.roninfilms.com.au orders@roninfilms.com.au

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Construction Trades, Documentary, Labor History

 

Rocky Road to Dublin (1967)

26 Apr

99m; Ireland

Director: Peter Lennon

Cast: Sean O’Faoláin, Conor Cruise O’Brien and John Huston

Synopsis (Wikipedia): A brief sketch of Irish history since the Easter Rising of 1916 is drawn, in which the hopes of the revolutionary founders of the Irish Free State for a republican society are dashed. The writer Seán Ó Faoláin argues that what emerged was a society of “urbanized peasants” without moral courage who observed a self-interested silence in a “constant alliance” with an “obscurantist” and “uncultivated church”.

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2012 in Documentary, Politics

 

RopeWalk: A Cordage Engineer’s Journey Through History (2008)

26 Apr

57m; U.S.

Director: Steve Fetsch

Synopsis: Prehistoric tools, Ben Franklin, trust busting, railroads, drug laws, plastics, nanotubes and space travel? What ties these things together in a movie? Rope, of course!

Contact: athensmovie@yahoo.com 740-594-7848 (Private)

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2012 in Documentary, Manufacturing

 

Roosevelt’s America (2004)

26 Apr

25m; U.S.
Director: Roger Weisberg

Synopsis (IMDB): A Liberian refugee’s inspiring journey to build a new life for his family.

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2012 in Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration

 

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Rough Diamonds – A Video Presentation (2001)

26 Apr

10m; U.S.

Director: Dennis Strom; Clyde Ware

Cast: Jesse Johnson, Tyrone Power Jr, Joe Estevez

Synopsis: A video presentation about a coal miner working to get medical care for his wife. The miner is eventually trapped in a coalmine disaster and barely escapes with his life. Tyrone Power Jr, grandson of the famous Tyrone Power, and Joe Estevez, the brother of Martin Sheen appear in the presentation.

Contact: Steve Fesenmaier has a VHS copy he was given by Clyde Ware who still works out of Delaware Pictures, 650 N. Bronson Ave., B114, Hollywood, CA 90004 (323) 960-4552 delaware_pix@yahoo.com

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2012 in Documentary, Safety & Health

 

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Roving Pickets (1992)

26 Apr

28m; U.S.

Synopsis: Looks at the consequences of automation in the coal mining industry in eastern Kentucky: severely reduced wages, chronic unemployment, families divided by out-migration and in 1961 and 62, the cancellation of union health insurance benefits the threatened closing of the UMWA hospitals. All this stimulated President Johnson’s interest in creating the “War on Poverty.”

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2012 in Automation, Documentary, Safety & Health

 

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Running Out of Time (1994)

26 Apr

57m; U.S.

Director: John de Graaf

Synopsis (IMDB): The growing problems of “time famine” and overwork.

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2012 in Documentary, Working Class

 

SF Hotel Workers Strike of 1941

26 Apr

by Lester Balog. This historic footage shows the 1941 San Francisco Labor Day march and the 1941 hotel workers’ strike. Screened (with “SF Labor on the March”) at the 2003 San Francisco LaborFest.

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2012 in Documentary, Service Workers, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 
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