Paris, Latin Quarter. A small cinema that is both famous and marginal, Action Christine. The cashier has taken her camcorder and takes us to this public place, her workplace. Place of life, of passage, of meeting, a window open on the street, behind the hygienic phone, it is the daily life of the cashiers and the openers punctuated by the alternation of surging entrances and idle intersession.
A RECORD OF THE STRIKE AT GRUNWICK IN 1977. The story of the continuing struggle at Grunwick’s by mainly Indian workers, from July 11th, 1977 until the struggle was lost. It shows the Special Patrol Group attack on the November 7th day of action, how the leadership of the struggle was taken out of the hands of the strike committee, how some of the strike leaders were disciplined by their own union for going on hunger strike outside the TUC in protest at the TUC’s inactivity, and how the post office workers were forced by their union to end their blacking of Grunwick mail. It also shows the beginnings of the similar struggle by immigrant workers at Garner’s Steak Houses in London.
'Stand together!', a film on the "mass day of solidarity" on 11 July 1977, was made in 1977 for the Grunwick Strike Committee by the Newsreel Collective, of which Chris Thomas was a member, and members of the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians (ACTT) and the Transport and General Workers' Union.
In their own words, this is the story of six women from the South Wales valleys and how they helped sustain the bitter year-long miners' strike, changing their lives forever.
L'autre mai, Nantes mai 68
Le Siècle des couturières
What happens when subcontracted precarious workers turn into podcast DJ. Subcontracted precarious workers at the SK Broadband, Inc. began a podcast titled ‘Workers Have Changed!’ to broadcast the story about their strike for job security. The podcast studio becomes a theater of their life as they share their stories - daily hardshipsof subcontracted labor, coping with rude customers, and their futures and dreams.
A Sense of Justice, immerses us In a law firm in this same city. There, we can find Christine Mengus and Nohra Boukara, specialized in the rights of foreigners, supported by Audrey Scarinoff and their co-workers.. Stories from their sad, appalling or tragicomic cases alternate with their daily legal work. And as we hear snatches of consultations involving illegal entry or departure, deportation orders, the right to reside or medical assistance, we become witnesses to predictable tragedies, to the administrative or social precariousness induced by such predicaments, and to whole lives depending on court rulings.
Four women farmers working in the Champagne-Ardennes region talk about their working conditions, the part they play in running the farm, the distribution of jobs between husband and wife and the lack of status of their work... They emphasise how denial of the essential role they play in running the farm has led them to demand specific recognition of their job. Presentation of the Women's Association for Agricultural Development (AFDA).
Un sale métier
This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastover's refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.
Warsaw's Central Railway Station. 'Someone has fallen asleep, someone's waiting for somebody else. Maybe they'll come, maybe they won't. The film is about people looking for something.
Documentary following dockers of Liverpool sacked in a labour dispute and their supporters’ group, Women of the Waterfront, as they receive support from around the world and seek solidarity at the TUC conference.
In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days later the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. Using the point of view of the Marikana miners, Miners Shot Down follows the strike from day one, showing the courageous but isolated fight waged by a group of low-paid workers against the combined forces of the mining company Lonmin, the ANC government and their allies in the National Union of Mineworkers.
Matisse & Lydia
The Indonesian archipelago in the Indo-Pacific Ocean comprises thousands of islands, atolls and the largest concentration of coral reefs in the world. This rich and varied environment is a product of a unique set of natural circumstances.
In 1962 Joris Ivens was invited to Chile for teaching and filmmaking. Together with students he made …A Valparaíso, one of his most poetic films. Contrasting the prestigious history of the seaport with the present the film sketches a portrait of the city, built on 42 hills, with its wealth and poverty, its daily life on the streets, the stairs, the rack railways and in the bars. Although the port has lost its importance, the rich past is still present in the impoverished city. The film echoes this ambiguous situation in its dialectical poetic style, interweaving the daily life reality (of 1963) with the history of the city and changing from black and white to colour, finally leaving us with hopeful perspective for the children who are playing on the stairs and hills of this beautiful town.
When workers at the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota are asked to take a substantial pay cut in a highly profitable year, the local labor union decides to go on strike and fight for a wage they believe is fair. But as the work stoppage drags on and the strikers face losing everything, friends become enemies, families are divided and the very future of this typical mid American town is threatened.
The UCS struggle is a campaign film supporting the fight to retain their jobs by the workers at Upper Clyde Shipyards who developed a new weapon for waging this fight – the occupation and the work-in. The film was screened at the time at meetings attended overall by 25,000 workers. It includes a speech by Jimmy Reid.
A documentary about the dockworkers in Gothenburg, and the future of the shipping industry in the city.