Documentary | THE LABOR FILM DATABASE

From the Bottom Up (1991)

65m; U.S.

Director: Sedgwick Productions

Synopsis: It’s a 65 minute documentary that features: 1. Community organizing: Gail Cincotta and NPA Two IAF groups in Texas: COPS and Valley Interfaith. 2. Community-based economic development Two groups in the South Bronx doing affordable housing including sweat equity – Banana Kelly, and the Mid-Bronx Development Corporation One group in Embarrass Minnesota (SISU) working on stabilizing a rural community through reviving Finnish heritage buildings, crafts, etc.

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Organizing

From Sunrise to Sunset (1984)

01 Mar

42m

Director: Robin King

Synopsis (WorldCat): “Reminiscences of John Handcox, 79 year old black poet, songwriter, and former member of the 1930’s Southern Tenant Farmers Union in Arkansas.”

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Arts/Culture, Blacks, Documentary, Farm & Food

The Great Depression (1934)

01 Mar

9m; U.S.

Director: Maurice Bailen

Synopsis: This low-budget independent documentary provides memorable social history of the people and events of 1934 in Chicago.

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Working Class

The Great Swindle (1948)

01 Mar

36m; U.S.

Synopsis: A presentation of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers position versus the National Association of Manufacturers in the latter’s successful campaign to force termination of government price controls. It explains the relationship between wages, prices, profits and monopoly control.

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Politics, Working Class

The Greening of Southie (2008)

01 Mar

72m; U.S.

Director: Ian Cheney

Synopsis: Documentary about Boston’s first residential green building, and the skeptical workers who are asked to build it.

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Construction Trades, Documentary, Environment, Working Class

Greensboro: Closer to the Truth (2007)

01 Mar

86m; U.S.

Director: Adam Zucker

Synopsis: A documentary film chronicling the participants in the Greensboro Massacre—a 1979 attack in which the Ku Klux Klan killed five Communists in broad daylight, and no one was convicted. Klansmen and former Communists converge in the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission to be held in the U.S. in 2004-2006.

Contact: azfilmmaker@verizon.net 917-270-0083 (Cell)

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Organizing, Politics, Working Class

The Grievance Hearing (1953)

01 Mar

15m; U.S.

Synopsis: A dramatized incident in an industrial plant is used in showing how grievance hearings enable representatives of labor unions and management to arrive at compromises in the settlement of disputes.

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Organizing, Working Class

A Grin Without a Cat (Le Fond de l’air est rouge) (1977)

01 Mar

240m; France

Synopsis (Wikipedia): The film features many interviews with French communist leaders, students, and sociologists. The Prague Spring of 1968 is featured, with footage of a Fidel Castro speech in which he expresses political support for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia while questioning the legality of the action. Other sections deal with the rise of Salvador Allende and the Watergate Scandal in the United States. There are many subtle references to cats throughout the film, as well as brief shots of raccoons.

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Politics

HERstory – Jeritan (2009)

01 Mar

74m

Director: Cecilia Ho Wing Yin

Synopsis (CLiFF): A story of Indonesian female migrant workers who left their homes to work as domestic helpers in Macao, China, a community consisting mainly of Chinese as well as a city of casinos and entertainment parlours.

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Migrant workers, Women

Hillbilly – The Real Story (2007)

01 Mar

120m; U.S.

Director: David Moore Huntley

Cast: Billy Ray Cyrus

Synopsis: Generally, it brings America’s mythic and misunderstood southern mountain people to life and reveal their pivotal but unsung role in forming the nation and forging the American character. It discusses the largest civil insurrection since the Civil War — the Battle for Blair Mountain in the violent West Virginia coalfields in 1921, when a self-proclaimed Redneck Army of 10,000 coal miners fought for their right to organize.

Contact: The History Channel store. http://shop.history.com/detail.php?a=115530 http://www.moorehuntley.com/CONTACT.html

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Organizing, Politics

Tags: Mining