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Tag Archives: Mining

My Town (2002)

20 Apr

60m; Poland

Director: Marek Lechki

Cast: Radoslaw Chrzescianski, Agnieszka Banach and Krzysztof Stroinski

Synopsis (IMDB): A slice of life in the mining/industrial region of Upper Silesia. Many mines and factories closed down in 1990s, resulting in high unemployment, economic depression, and general hopelessness. We follow 25-years-old unemployed Gozdzik who lives with his alcoholic father, his mother, always anxious about the future, and an assortment of neighbours. The gray monotony of daily life is broken by arrival of a long-absent uncle, a new girl staying with neighbours, and a tragedy involving Gozdzik’s best friend

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Drama, Unemployment-Wages

 

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One Day Longer – Mine Mill CAW Local 598 Strikes Falconbridge (2001)

20 Apr

8m; 

Director: Stuart Cryer

Synopsis: The strike of the mineworkers of Mine Mill CAW Local 598 against Falconbridge is into its sixth month. The community is fighting back.

Contact:  Stuart Cryer terraV@cyberbeach.net http://www.vimeo.com/8555679

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Available Online, Documentary, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

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Out of Darkness: The Mine Worker’s Story (1991)

20 Apr

100m; U.S.

Director: Barbara Kopple and Bill Davis

Synopsis: An electrifying documentary by Academy-Award-winning director Barbara Kopple (Harlan County, USA) and award-winning video director and editor Bill Davis. Historical film footage and photographs are integrated with first-hand accounts of Mine Workers’ history and of the recent battle with the Pittston Coal Group. Accompanied by a moving soundtrack created by Tom Juravich, this 100-minute film represents real life stories with a powerful, dramatic touch.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Labor History, Organizing

 

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Outland (1981)

20 Apr

112m; U.S.

Director: Peter Hyams

Cast: Sean Connery, Frances Sternhagen and Peter Boyle

Synopsis (IMDB): Marshal W.T. O’Niel is assigned to a mining colony on Io, one of Jupiter’s moons. During his tenure miners are dying – usually violently. When the marshal investigates he discovers the one thing all the deaths have in common is a lethal amphetamine-type drug, which allows the miners to work continuously for days at a time until they become “burned out” and expire. O’Niel follows the trail of the dealers, which leads to the man overseeing the colony. Now O’Niel must watch his back at every turn, as those who seek to protect their income begin targeting him.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Crime-Action, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Safety & Health, SciFi, Working Class

 

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Pitfall (Otoshiana) [1962]

20 Apr

97m; Japan

Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara

Cast: Hisashi Igawa, Kunie Tanaka, Hideo Kanze, Sen Yano, Kazuo Miyahara, Sumie Sasaki, Kei Sato

Synopsis: A miner (Hiroshi Segawa) and his son (Kazuo Miyahara) set out to find work in Western Japan after a spate of fruitless endeavours.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Migrant workers

 

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Portrait of a Coal Miner (1980)

20 Apr

15m; U.S.

Synopsis: Before the recent tragedy in Ferrell No. 17, Madison, Boone County, filmmakers for National Geographic’s new series, Community Life In America, made a film on the Marcum family. Marcus was charged with the deaths of several miners as a result of a gas explosion. Lawyers for the prosecuting attorney watched the film at The WV Cultural Center. Besides working as a shift manager Tom Marcum and family enjoy fishing and camping. Basic facts about coal mining are shown along with the lifestyle of coalmining families in WV. Access: 16 mm only, WVLC

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Working Class

 

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Men and Dust (1940)

15 Apr

17m
Director: Lee Dick
Synopsis (BAM/PFA): An exposé, based on the findings of the Tri-State Survey Committee, of the appalling health conditions and survival problems of the workers in the zinc and lead mining areas at the junction of Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. It shows the fight led by the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union to improve the efforts of mine owners to eliminate silicosis, tuberculosis and lead poisoning.
available on YouTube

 
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Posted by on April 15, 2012 in Available Online, Documentary, Safety & Health, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo)

 

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The Miners’ Hymns (2011)

14 Apr

52m

Director: Bill Morrison

Synopsis (REDCAT): Since The Film of Her (1996), award-winning filmmaker Bill Morrison has completed more than 20 experimental pieces in which he poetically and rhythmically reworks archival footage in various stages of preservation or decomposition. With The Miners’ Hymns, he teams up with Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson to celebrate the culture and political struggles of the Durham collieries in northeastern England. Weaving together stunning black-and-white footage from the early 1900s through the massive 1984 strikes, the film montages different aspects of the miners’ lives—the hardship of pit work, the role of the trade unions, the tradition of the colliery brass bands and the annual Miners’ Gala in Durham.

Website: http://billmorrisonfilm.com/feature-length-films/the-miners-hymns

 
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Posted by on April 14, 2012 in Arts/Culture, Documentary, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Working Class

 

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Libby, Montana (2004)

30 Mar

124 min

Directors: Doug Hawes-Davis, Drury Gunn Carr

Synopsis (PBS): Libby, Montana is first of all the story of an ideal American community in what early explorers called “the land of the shining mountains.” Nestled below the rugged peaks of the Northern Rockies along the crystal-clear Kootenai River, Libby is the archetypal backpacker’s, hunter’s and angler’s paradise, as well as a picture-perfect example of the American wilderness that environmentalists want to save. At the same time, the town’s remoteness and its logging and mining economy nurtured conservative, self-reliant family and community values.

But Libby, Montana is also the story of an ideal betrayed in a way that crosses political lines and raises alarming questions about the role of corporate power in American politics and the environmental pollution that extracts its highest costs from ordinary citizens. In Libby, 70 years of strip-mining an ore called “vermiculite” and marketed as the wonder material “Zonolite” exposed workers, their families and thousands of residents to a toxic form of asbestos, creating what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has called the worst case of industrial poisoning of a whole community in American history.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/libbymontana/film_description.php

 
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Posted by on March 30, 2012 in Documentary, Environment, Safety & Health

 

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Labor in the Mountains (2005)

30 Mar

55m; U.S.

Synopsis: A grandfather recounts the history of labor unions in West Virginia to his granddaughter. His story spans from the civil war era to the current labor movement in the state. Labor Union; West Virginia; Civil War labor movement; Great Uprising; General Strike; United Mine Workers of America; UMW; United Steel Workers.

Contact: Available as VHS or DVD, $5 from Labor in the Mountains Foundation, ILSR/WVU, 719 Knapp Hall, Morgantown WV 26506. Telephone: (304) 293-3323 Toll Free: 1-800-499-0486 Fax: (304) 293-3395

 
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Posted by on March 30, 2012 in Children, Documentary, Drama, Kids, Labor History, Organizing, Safety & Health

 

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