The lightning lampsy

During the height of the Cold War, the Waterside Workers' Federation Film Unit produced eleven (11) films for several trade unions on political and industrial issues. Independent film-makers worked with them to develop critical dialogue from one generation of concerned film-makers onto another. FILM-WORK looks at sequences from 4 of these films and interviews some of their makers, raising a diversity of issues pertinent to current debates in film, history and politics. The 4 films that are looked at are PENSIONS FOR VETERANS (1953, NSW Branch, WWF), THE HUNGRY MILES (1954, WWF), NOVEMBER VICTORY (1955, WWF), and HEWERS OF COAL (1953, Miners Federation). PENSIONS FOR VETERANS covers the issue of the need for pensions to be given to workers who have worked on the waterfront all their life. THE HUNGRY MILES shows the strength of the workers, the union and its democracy. HEWERS OF COAL is about the coal miners and their struggle to get better working conditions and pensions.

Those who rebel against authority figures disobey. This film echoes “Cordobazo” — a popular rebellion in Cordoba against the Argentine military dictatorship in 1969 — through the story of Alicia, a trolleybus driver who joins an insurrection against an oppressive regime.

Short film made on the production of HOWL OF THE DEVIL.

A documentary about young football players at the red-bull-football academy, who want to make it as a pro. Shot in Salzburg, Ghana, New York, Brazil and Leipzig. With superstar of African Foot including Champions we will see what are they and their enviroment are ready to do and give up to live their Big Dream.

Blade Runner: Mundos Replicantes

This experimental nature documentary by Minna Rainio and Mark Roberts depicts climate change and the wave of extinction from the point of view of our near future. Actually, it depicts the age we live in now, or rather its fateful consequences.

Finland’s first nature documentary. The filmmakers’ expedition leads them all the way to the Åland Islands and the Karelian Isthmus.

Rivières ouvertes

After 52 years of armed conflict the FARC guerrillas are about to hand over their arms in exchange for political participation and social inclusion of the poor. Ernesto is one of them. The much celebrated Colombian peace agreement throws Ernesto and the polarised society around him into chaos in which everyone is afraid of the future and their own survival.

Utopian ideals fall victim to the foibles of human nature in this feature documentary from Estonian director Margit Lillak.

For the family members of murder victims mourning is often postponed indefinitely. To unlock the trauma and begin the grieving, a method called restorative dialogue brings two parents - and the audience - eye to eye with the murderers.

Kelet is a twentysomething black trans woman, whose greatest dream is to be on the cover of Vogue magazine. For the Finnish-born and Manchester-raised Kelet, such models as Naomi Campbell and Iman served as role models giving her strength – and during the darkest times, kept her alive. After coming out, then 19-year-old Kelet was cut off from her family and she moved back to Finland on her own.

In Jeevodaya, there is an educational and therapeutic centre for lepers and their families. Helena Pyz came here from Poland thirty years ago to help sick and hungry children. Over the years, she has begun to feel her weakness more and more acutely but the strength of her character does not allow her to surrender to her own illness.

A documentary that tells the story of Choi Hyun-sook, the first out lesbian parliamentarian candidate in Korea who ran for Jongno-gu in the April 2008 National Assembly election. It's a story about people who dream of a world where minorities are happy, and who, with expectation and aspiration, find the campaign headquarters and made an election with Choi Hyun-sook.

In Japan, there is an informal agreement between mainstream media and the government that is hardly ever questioned: Journalists are not too persistent in their criticism, in turn representatives of the government grant direct access to select information through press conferences. Isoko Mochizuki, reporter for the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, has established herself as a spoilsport in this system.

Partage des eaux

A story about the riddle of femininity in French cinema.

Historian Bob Carruthers directs this documentary looking into the world of Adolf Hitler. The film explores and assesses the environmental factors that shaped Hitler, from his first boyhood experiences through the years of struggle in Vienna, his Great War adventures, the bungled Beer Hall Putsch, his triumph over democracy and his final defeat in the ruins of Berlin.

Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer is one of the first and most influential surf movies of all time. The film documents American surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they travel the world during California’s winter (which, back in 1965 was off-season for surfing) in search of the perfect wave and ultimately, an endless summer.

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.