Blow for Blow

Departing from peripheral details of some paintings of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, a female narrator unravels several stories related to the economic, social and psychological conditions of past and current artists.

Suburbanite Ron is spoiled, young and not overly worried about the marijuana charges leveled against him. But, after being made out to be a drug dealer, he faces a five-year jail sentence in San Quentin State Prison. Physically frail and unaccustomed to his rough surroundings, Ron is primed to fall victim to sexual predators and bullying guards – that is, until he's befriended by Earl, a veteran inmate who finds meaning in protecting the vulnerable new kid.

In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed.

La Califfa's husband was killed during the strikes so she takes the side of the strikers. Her conflict with the plant owner Doverdo gradually turns into a love relationship.

A strike at a French sausage factory contributes to the estrangement of a married filmmaker and his reporter wife.

After promising 1100 employees that they would protect their jobs, the managers of a factory decide to suddenly close up shop. Laurent takes the lead in a fight against this decision.

Emma Freese is desperate when her husband Alfred falls ill at the Howaldtswerke in Kiel. How is the family supposed to get by without their wages? The war has scarred this generation, but now things are supposed to be looking up. The workers want their fair share and are fighting for an income that also gives them room to live. In October 1956, 34,000 metalworkers in the shipyards and factories of Schleswig-Holstein walk off the job to fight for justice and their dignity. This strike is still regarded as the toughest and longest in Germany. Employers and politicians stand in the strikers' way.

At New Mexico's Empire Zinc mine, Mexican-American workers protest the unsafe work conditions and unequal wages compared to their Anglo counterparts. Ramon Quintero helps organize the strike, but he is shown to be a hypocrite by treating his pregnant wife, Esperanza, with a similar unfairness. When an injunction stops the men from protesting, however, the gender roles are reversed, and women find themselves on the picket lines while the men stay at home.

After the funeral of one of their own, a criminal family decides to embark on an emotionally unnerving journey in an attempt to exact bloody revenge.

In response to a sudden dismissal of staff, workers at a big retail store begin a protest against their employer's oppressive labor policies.

The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.

Set against the backdrop of an increasingly violent strike, a worker falls in love with the middle-class daughter of his landlady.

Young women at a precision optics factory in wartime Japan push to exceed production quotas, enduring illness, injury, and personal hardship to “serve the country.” Led by Tsuru Watanabe, they fight fatigue and setbacks to keep their line moving—even when duty collides with grief.

A young Colombian woman confronts her father and best friend, who resist her taking to the streets to protest for fear of the repression and violence that is taking place in the streets.

In post-World War I Winnipeg, a Ukrainian immigrant and a Jewish woman get caught up in a labour strike.

In Warsaw in 1980, the Communist Party sends disgruntled radio reporter Winkel to Gdańsk to dig up dirt on the shipyard strikers - particularly on Maciek Tomczyk, an independent labour union leader whose father was killed in the December 1970 protests. Posing as sympathetic, Winkel interviews the people surrounding Tomczyk, including his detained wife, Agnieszka.

County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.

In County Durham, England, 1984, a talented young dancer, Billy Elliot, stumbles out of the boxing ring and onto the ballet floor. He faces many trials and triumphs as he strives to conquer his family’s set ways, inner conflict, and standing on his toes in a musical that questions masculinity, gender norms and conformity.

In 1910, women working in the silk industry in Bursa, protest against the working conditions. They go on strike.

A chronicle of the lives of the Gibbons family, from shortly after the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second.