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Category Archives: Documentary

Immokalee U.S.A. (2008)

76m; U.S.

Director: Georg Koszulinski

Synopsis: Immokalee U.S.A. examines the lives of the individuals who make up the small migrant farming community of Immokalee, Florida.

Contact: koszulinski@gmail.com 352-491-2960 (Cell)

 

In Debt We Trust

 
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Posted by on March 19, 2012 in Documentary

 

In Quest Of The Spectacular (2005)

32m; 

Director: Aunshuman Apte

Contact: 618-203-4589; aunshuman@gmail.com

Synopsis: “The documentary focuses on the hardships that upcoming actors face to get entry into Bollywood, India’s Mumbai based film industry.”

Website: http://sites.google.com/site/aunshuman/home/productions-1/other-work

 

In The Pit (2006)

84m; Mexico

Director Juan Carlos Rulfo

Synopsis: Absorbing documentary about work and the transformation of men into laborers through story of construction crew.

 

In White Collar America (1974)

52m; U.S.

Synopsis: A picture of the mind-numbing clerical work at Georgia Life, an Atlanta insurance company.

 
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Posted by on March 19, 2012 in Documentary, White Collar

 

In the Company of Men (1969)

52m; U.S.

Director: Newsweek

Synopsis: An examination of the conflicting attitudes between minority group workers and company foremen.

 
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Posted by on March 19, 2012 in Documentary

 

In the Company’s Hands (1987)

58m; U.S.

Director: Jack Kelly

Cast: Michael Martin

Synopsis: Jack Kelly directed, wrote and produced this comprehensive documentary about the Southern WV coal mine wars. It is narrated by Kelly and local actor Michael Martin who also acts in some of the recreations. Using archival footage, photographs, and historic songs, Kelly recreates the world of coal mining in the area. He interviews the descendants of people on both sides – the children of coal mine owners and the children of coal miners. Some of the people interviewed include black coal miner Sug Hawkins, Cecil Roberts (not UMWA president), and William Becker. The nephew of Tom Felts of the Baldwin-Felts Agency and a son of an owner are also interviewed. The film goes back to the first days of coal mining in WV, which started in 1871 in the New River area near Beckley. By 1896, 26 million tons of coal from the Pocahontas Field was being shipped all over the country to power the developing industrial age. 14 millionaires lived in Brawell. Around 1900 many miners from Europe were brought to the coal fields, segregated in their own sections of the company towns. 80 % of all coal in WV was mined in company towns. The coal mine owners felt they had a divine right to do whatever was necessary to build their companies in “the wilderness.” Most of the film focuses on the struggle between miners and the oppressive reality of life in company towns where all behavior was closely controlled by the miner owners. Key events such as The Matewan Massacre and The Battle of Blair Mountain are analyzed. Dr. Fred Barkey, a well-known WV labor historian, and industry historian Dr. C. Stuart McGehee provided the historical information. Executive producer Donn Rogosin, station manager of WSWP-TV.

 

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Indentured (2010)

10m; U.S./Iraq

Director: Cy Kuckenbaker

Synopsis: “Indentured” investigates the living conditions of South Asian laborers working on US military bases in Iraq. Thousands of nameless workers, called “Third Country Nationals” because they’re neither American nor Iraqi, toil inside US bases in Iraq as food servers, custodians, construction workers and more. But unlike American contractors who often make six figure salaries in Iraq, these men typically make less than two dollars an hour. Nepalese custodians talk about the illegal broker’s fees they had to pay to get their jobs on the base. Inside a company-run camp a Nepalese supervisor explains how they are brought into Iraq against Nepalese and Iraqi law.

 

Industrial Britain (1931)

22 min

Director: Robert Flaherty

Synopsis (British Film Institute):

Industrial Britain represents a watershed in the development of the British documentary movement, the moment when artistic achievement was first blended meaningfully with social intent.

The film developed from John Grierson’s opportunistic recruitment of Robert Flaherty. Flaherty was an anthropologist-cum-filmmaker who shot to worldwide prominence with Nanook of the North (1920), a documentary that detailed the hardships of Eskimo life.

Anxious to secure a prestige director for the project (Anthony Asquith had already turned them down) The Empire Marketing Board turned hopefully to a near-destitute Flaherty. Soured by failure in Hollywood and inspired by the high-seriousness of early Soviet cinema, Flaherty exchanged the exoticism of his previous work for an appreciation of Britain’s industrial workers. Many of his sequences – like the English potter – were considered successful enough to merit a subsequent release as shorts.

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/513737/index.html

 

The Industrial City (1970)

16m; U.S.

Director: Encyclopedia Brittanica Educational Corporation

Synopsis: Study of Detroit as an automotive industrial city.