I've Got to Live... (1978)

Matewan

Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan, a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan's vested interests so that justice and workers' rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.

Thuramukham

The Harbour shows how two brothers end up on opposing sides of this system. One becomes the leader of an employer’s gang of thugs, while the other becomes an activist. All the while, the women in their family go hungry and the community is ravaged by violence and alcoholism.

Esta tierra es mía

The life of the cotton workers in the Chaco and its struggle for wages.

Strike

Workers in a factory in pre-revolutionary Russia go on strike and are met by violent suppression.

3.87

During 2004 alone, 1400 people in Italy died at their workplace, 3.87 per day. Andrea is one of them.

Until Tomorrow, Comrades

Portugal, 1944. In a country oppressed by a brutal dictatorship, there are those who resist and mobilize the people to fight for bread and freedom, even if it cost them prison, torture or their lives.

A Whole Life Ahead

25-year-old philosophy major Marta faces the ugly truth for many young Italians — a complete lack of career opportunities. While babysitting for single mother Sonia, she starts to work as a telemarketer, experiencing first-hand the fanatical and exploitative rat-race culture pushed on employees while quickly rising through the ranks of the company. Around her revolve people like delusional supervisor Daniela, her womanizing boss Claudio, fragile coworker Lucio "2", and well-meaning but inconsistent union rep Giorgio.

Richelieu

A French-to-Spanish interpreter working for a food processing plant that hires seasonal workers from Guatemala is, at first determined to obey the sometimes excessive directives of the young boss, but she befriends the workers and tries to defend them against the exploitation they suffer.

Sunset Sunrise

In 2020, the world is forced into lockdown by the COVID pandemic. As remote work is popularized in order to keep the infection rate under control, a young man employed by a company in Tokyo moves to a country town on the Sanriku Coast in Miyagi Prefecture, where he could enjoy fishing, in search of a new lifestyle. But gradually, we found that there were problems such as "empty houses" in the local area.

Les Lucioles

In the 1920s, female workers in a factory paint fluorescent watch dials. Mollie, the newcomer, makes a mistake that forces her colleagues to work with her through the night. Deprived of the evening ball they were supposed to attend, they end up improvising their own ball in the factory…

Broken Flag

When a group of young filmmakers witness and film a crime of passion, the most outrageous blackmail of the century begins. By means of a fantastic plan, the filmmakers send to the murderer, a financial and industrial big shot, a copy of the movie that incriminates him and they demand him an improvement of the standard of living for the working class.

Tragic Jungle

In a company trading maté, workers are treated as slaves. Some of them try to escape, but those who are caught suffer severe punishments.

The Last Laugh

An aging doorman, after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious hotel, is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbours and society.

Wastelands

The eldest member of a rural community of grape growers refuses to sell his land to a greedy real estate company. When he seems cornered by the dirty tactics of a corrupt businessman, he must decide whether to give up everything he owns, or take control of the situation.

ciao Aracà

"...a charming depiction of life as I knew it with my grandparents in my own village..." Clara Caleo Green, Cinema Italia UK "The sum of the individual fates and life choices paints a picture, the validity of which extends far beyond this village." Joachim Manzin, Black Box This documentary records the thoughtful and emotional confrontation with time, change, loss and hope related by the members of a small community in the idyllic Ligurian countryside who are dealing with a rapidly changing agricultural industry, transformed by globalisation and technological advances and an increasing number of foreigners buying the empty houses in their village. Forgoing the use of music and voice over, the film lets Aracà's inhabitants tell their own stories and allows the audience to dive into the rich soundscape of the ligurian alpine countryside.

Apple Gatherers

Apple Gatherers follows two workers in an apple cider factory, the Peeler and the Shoveller. The film explores the loneliness and dissatisfaction of their labour-intensive world and the brief reprieve they find in moments of real human connection.

The Harvest

Gurwinder comes from Punjab, he’s been working for years as a farm hand in Agro Pontino, not far from Rome. Since he first came in Italy, he’s been living with the rest of the Sikh community in Latina province. Hardeep is also Indian, but her stress is Roman, and she works as a cultural mediator. She, born and raised in Italy, is trying to free herself from the memories of a family that emigrated in another age, while he is forced, against his faith, to take methamphetamine and doping to bear the heavy work pace, to be able to send money in India.

Farewell Ferris Wheel

Farewell Ferris Wheel explores how the U.S. Carnival industry fights to keep itself alive by legally employing Mexican migrant workers with the controversial H-2B guestworker visa.

Radium City

Documentary about the Radium Dial Company and the aftereffects experienced by its workers from repeated exposure to radioactive paint.

Nous paysans

In barely a century, French peasants have seen their world profoundly turned upside down. While they once made up the vast majority of the country, today they are only a tiny minority and are faced with an immense challenge: to continue to feed France. From the figure of the simple tenant farmer described by Emile Guillaumin at the beginning of the 20th century to the heavy toll paid by peasants during the Great War, from the beginnings of mechanization in the inter-war period to the ambivalent figure of the peasant under the Occupation, From the unbridled race to industrialization in post-war France to the realization that it is now necessary to rethink the agricultural model and invent the agriculture of tomorrow, the film looks back at the long march of French peasants.

Blow It to Bits

A mix of Rock and Roll and Blues are the secret for successful rebellion. When I took my camera to the middle of France where the GM&S factory was threatened by a permanent shut down, I felt like something extraordinary was about to take place. And it did. The lyrics were written by workers who have had enough! The tune was composed by people not afraid to go against even the rules of revolt! The volume was loud enough to attract the media. Their working-class concert spread across France like wild fire. I sat out of sight, camera in hand, filming like catching fish in a barrel.

Love, Women & Flowers

Women workers stand up to the toxic flower industry in Colombia.

"They Didn't Starve Us Out": Industrial Cape Breton in the 1920s

For 200 years, coal mining had been a way of life in Cape Breton. By 1920 things were looking up: miners were unionized and paid decent wages. Then the British Empire Steel Corporation arrived and bought every single steel and coal company in Nova Scotia. BESCO cut wages by a third, setting off a bitter labour dispute. The miners settled in for a long strike. Finally, in 1925, the military ended the unrest with brute force. But the miners, in one sense, had won. They broke up the monopoly and provided an example to workers across the country.

Triangle: Remembering the Fire

On March 25, 1911, a catastrophic fire broke out at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City. Trapped inside the upper floors of a ten-story building, 146 workers - mostly young immigrant women and teenage girls - were burned alive or forced to jump to their deaths to escape an inferno that consumed the factory in just 18 minutes. It was the worst disaster at a workplace in New York State until 9/11. The tragedy changed the course of history, paving the way for government to represent working people, not just business, for the first time, and helped an emerging American middle class to live the American Dream.

The Devil’s Fire

THE DEVIL'S FIRE is an original documentary from WSKG Public Television and filmmaker Brian Frey. Utilizing never-before-seen photographs and investigative archival material, the film tells the story behind the Binghamton Clothing Company's charismatic owner, Reed B. Freeman, and the young immigrant workers trapped in the deadly blaze that hot Tuesday in July of 1913.

Heart North

The two best friends, Henny and Elvira, are in their last year of junior high school in the small community Norsjö in northern Sweden. At night they drive around in Hennys’ shiny black rebuilt Volvo, an Epa-tractor with a maximum speed of 30 km/h. Henny feels like she’s stuck in a hole and dreams of going to the dance school in the nearest city, 100 km away. Elvira on the other hand want nothing more than to stay in the safe haven she finally found in Norsjö after her mothers death. She applies to the local high school, however, with very few applicants the whole school is now at risk of shutting down. This is a story about being young, about the endless nights filled with love, despair and friendship. But it's also a story of political blindness and on-going cutbacks in the rural areas of Sweden. This story belongs to two young girls in the middle of an ever decreasing community

La Brigada – A Mural for the Unidad Popular in Dresden

During the 16th Workers' Festival in Dresden in 1976, a student group of Chilean emigrants paints a mural symbolically depicting the activity of the Unidad Popular during Salvador Allende's reign. Festival guests comment on this work. Music by Chilean music group Jaspampa, formed in Leipzig in 1972.

Un homme de Parole

Plot unavailable

Karma

A fictional drama piece set in a time when anti-capital punishment revolutions had started. It depicts a father's dilemma when his own son is sentenced to death.

The love song of farewell later

A suspense drama based on Osamu Takahashi's original work starring Shinobu Otake. The shooting location of Gunkanjima is a famous tourist attraction. When Mansako returns to her husband's parents' house, she noticed a young man named Shinji playing drums at a village festival. Shinji who felt her gaze also looked back at Mansako. Masako invites Shinji to her house to welcome her husband together, and is witnessed by a housewife who came to inform her husband of the accidental death while helping him change clothes. She is stigmatized for infidelity. They are separated, but they vow to meet again 12 years later.

Henshin Mou Hitori No Watashi

A suspense drama based on Miyuki Miyabe. In contrast to herself, she and two women lived a free-spirited life, forcing a restaurant owner to raise funds because of the Shinjuku incident. An office lady who impulsively jumps out of the company because she can't stand the sarcasm of girls at the company witnesses a motorboat accident. However, the accident was treated as suicide...

No Condom OK

A man admonishing a woman who smoked on the street. Thought she was a student and disciplined her, but it turned out that she was an adult. She slaps the man who was disciplined, and the man, surprised by her punching power, decides to raise him as a fighter.

Mascarpone

Antonio is a 30 year old family man, whose life finds an unexpected twist when he's suddenly dumped by his husband, whom he depends both psychologically and economically: he needs to find a new place to stay, a job and a new purpose in life. Antonio finds a room in an apartment owned by Denis and starts to work in a bakery owned by Luca, while attending pastry school. Through this process he discovers that it was wrong of him to give up his independence for the sake of his relationship in the past.

Zero Point

A president and his government are meeting in emergency after an enemy country launches a nuclear missile.

Our Father – The Last Days of a Dictator

Portugal, 1968. Salazar, the longest-serving fascist dictator, falls from his chair and suffers a stroke. Returning to his Palace to recover from illness, he is no longer President. No one reveals this him: neither his loyal housekeeper, nor his hard-working maids, nor his doctor. Does Salazar want to overcome death and perpetuate his power? How can he stay sane in that hallucinatory Palace?

Whispers in the Dabbas

Puspa, a novice lawyer handling trivial cases, fights for the cause of poor people accused of petty crimes and threatened with disproportionate punishment. As she takes on a rigged legal establishment, she must grapple with her crippling senses of powerlessness, and empathy.

The Night Clinic

Plot unavailable

A Muse Never Drowns

A member of the high school art club called Sakuko falls into the sea while sketching a boat. Witnessing the incident, Saibara creates a painting titled "Drowning Sakuko" and wins an award at a contest, leading the painting to be displayed at school. Moreover, Saibara takes the liberty of announcing that she will paint Sakuko for her next piece during a newspaper interview. Frustrated by the situation, Sakuko gives up on her artistic path and attempts to create a new work with the motif of a "boat" in her home, which is scheduled for demolition.

Settlement of Love

Living in a house that has lost its man to the war a year earlier are the widow and her child. Four of the dead man's friends gather to have an anniversary wake. Some time following the ceremony one of the attendees marries the widow. Soon another friend of the deceased and his family also make the house their home when they move to town. Everyone's life is changed quite a bit. When the newer husband sustains an injury to his leg and loses his job it leads to the wife having to work. By the time the fifth anniversary of the friend's death occurs and another reunion is held another friend is in love with the former widow.

Solo

Rural Appalachia explored through the eyes of two young brothers.

Hockey Dads

Andrey is the coach of a children's hockey team in a small provincial town. The hero's measured life is disrupted by the news that the only ice palace in the city, where he trains children, is going to be demolished. The only way to save him is to win an amateur hockey tournament. Andrey has only a few months to assemble a team and prepare it for the games. Fathers of little hockey players decide to take to the ice themselves and fight for the future of their children.

Dribbling Fate

Life has moved too fast for Mane. at the age of 50 he watches the slow sacrifice of his ideals. His wife, Lucy, has locked him in to a daily routine. His work in a small commercial shop and grocer's has worn him out. His dreams have evaporated into the drought of the beaten earth of Mindelo. Now forgotten, with his past as a great football player for Mindelense, in St Vincent in Cape Verde, he only has the belated compassion of his friends, neighbours, and cafe companions: "He was important", "He was the keeper in Cape Verde", "He could have played for Benfica!" Mane rejects the loss of his status as a hero. When training a youth team he sees himself again in KALU, a rebellious but talented youth. He is guided by a whirlwind of thoughts; he was also young, had opportunities, felt the sting of love and wasted his flame. A beaten leather ball shines in his hands once again, Benfica, his club, calls him to the Portuguese Cup Final.

On Wheels

13-year-old Lucas makes a new friend in his classmate Lais, and joins her on an epic journey to find the father she has never known.

The First Time

A young man catches the eye of another in a public park. The dance begins, the public toilets beckon. For one of them, this is one of many such encounters. For the other, it's the first time.