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Labor Studies

WAGING CHANGE

By Abby Ginzberg

WAGING CHANGE shines a light on an American struggle hidden in plain sight: the movement to end the federal tipped minimum wage for restaurant workers.

Most Americans don't know that the majority of people serving their food get paid a federal sub-minimum wage of only $2.13 an hour and are forced to depend on tips to feed themselves and their families. Women who rely on tips are also particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment. WAGING CHANGE weaves together the stories of workers struggling to make ends meet with the efforts of Saru Jayaraman of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, who faces off against the powerful National Restaurant Association lobby and fights for one fair wage. Featuring Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others who have mobilized support for the movement, WAGING CHANGE reveals the important role consumers have to play in ending this two-tiered wage system which has already been abolished in seven states.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2019 / 61 minutes

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CORPORATE COUP D'ETAT, THE

Director: Fred Peabody
By Peter Raymont

A democracy should protect its citizens, especially the most vulnerable among them, but the United States is increasingly failing to do so. This investigative documentary blends the insights of journalists and policy experts with the experiences of citizens of the Rust Belt, where the steel industry once flourished, but where closures and outsourcing have left it desolate and hopeless: a crisis exacerbated by income inequality and squabbling politicians. It is here that Donald Trump finds some of his most fervent supporters.

Some believe the crisis predates Trump's election by many years: Trump is a symptom, not the disease. They say that decades ago, U.S. democracy began selling its soul to big corporations, whose lobbyists and favored politicians took control in Washington, gradually undermining the will of the people. Naomi Klein recently described Trump's administration as a 'corporate coup d'Etat', but Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges and philosopher John Ralston Saul, among others, argue that the real coup started long before.

Threaded through the film are the stories of the ultimate victims: the working class and poor people in 'sacrifice zones' like Camden, New Jersey and Youngstown, Ohio. Many of them voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, but in 2016 - feeling abandoned by the elites of both parties - they cast their ballot for the man who promised to "drain the swamp."

Featuring journalists including Chris Hedges, Phillip Martin, Sarah Jaffe, Matt Taibbi and Lee Fang, and thinkers John Ralston Saul and Cornel West.

DVD / 2018 / 90 minutes

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COUNCILWOMAN

By Margo Guernsey

COUNCILWOMAN is the inspiring story of Carmen Castillo, an immigrant Dominican housekeeper in a Providence hotel who wins a seat in City Council, taking her advocacy for low-income workers from the margins to city politics.

The film follows Castillo's first term as she balances her full-time day job as a housekeeper with her family life and the demands of public office. She faces skeptics who say she doesn't have the education to govern, the power of corporate interests who take a stand against her fight for a $15 hourly wage, and a tough re-election against two contenders. As Castillo battles personal setbacks and deep-rooted notions of who is qualified to run for political office, she fiercely defends her vision of a society in which all people can earn enough to support themselves and their families.

An eye-opening look at entrenched power in American democracy, COUNCILWOMAN is essential viewing for Latinx, Immigrant, Political Science and Labor Studies courses.

DVD (English, Spanish, Color) / 2018 / 57 minutes

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DON'T GIVE UP YOUR VOICE! STORIES OF ARGENTINE RESISTANCE

Directed by Mark Dworkin, Melissa Young

Looks at the inspirational resistance of Argentinians to the government of Mauricio Macri, whose election preceded Trump's but whose style and policies are eerily similar.

DON'T GIVE UP YOUR VOICE! is at first glance about Argentina, but it is also about the USA. Argentina elected its Trump, Mauricio Macri, a year before we elected ours. The two are quite similar in the tone of their campaigns and the policies they are promoting once in office. But Argentines are resilient, and they have fought right wing governments before.

DON'T GIVE UP YOUR VOICE! looks at the widespread and creative resistance to Macri's policies--in organized labor, at worker co-ops and street protests, in theater and music. The film offers instructive parallels with the situation in the US, while illustrating the power of collective action.

DVD / 2018 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 41 minutes

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DYING FOR GOLD

Directed by Catherine Meyburgh & Richard Pakleppa

Today gold miner communities across Southern Africa have nothing to show for the wealth they produced except extreme rural underdevelopment and the world's worst epidemic of TB and silicosis.

Coerced by colonial laws hundreds of thousands of men left their families and fields to feed the mines hunger for cheap labour. They came from villages in South Africa, Malawi, Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana and Swaziland to dig for gold. South Africa was built on a system of modern slavery whereby the great mining houses of Anglo American, AngloGold Ashanti, Goldfields and others have knowingly made phenomenal profits at the cost of human lives.

Through the lives of miners and their families from Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique and South Africa and extensive use of contrasting archive materials DYING FOR GOLD tells how we have arrived at this extraordinary situation.

After more than a century of this practice, communities have been left devastated. Poverty is overwhelming. Men continue to seek work in South Africa as this has become their only choice. Decades of men not being part of their communities has ensured that communities are broken and unsustainable without their meager salaries. When laid off due to exposure to dust and/or TB, miners further burden their families as their health slowly deteriorates. The personal stories from participants across the sub-continent is visceral, intensely personal and devastating.

DYING FOR GOLD comes in the wake of the biggest class action case South Africa has seen. South Africa's largest gold mining companies have been accused of knowingly exposing miners to harmful dust causing the terminal disease, silicosis and makes them more susceptible to TB. The class action has been settled out of court - which means the real cost of gold will not be known. DYING FOR GOLD exposes the century of deplorable practices by gold mines to ensure that miners and their families are justly compensated. The film also aims to promote discussion on mining - especially profit based harmful practices.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned, With English Subtitles) / 2018 / 98 minutes

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EVERYTHING MUST FALL

Directed by Rehad Desai
By Jacqueline Jones, Grant Clark, Anita Khanna Zivia Desai Keiper

The story is told by four student leaders at Wits University and their Vice Chancellor, Adam Habib, a left-wing, former anti-apartheid student activist. When Habib's efforts to contain the protest fail, he brings 1000 police on to campus. There are dire consequences for the young leaders: Mcebo Dlamini is arrested and charged with serious offences, Shaeera Kalla is shot 13 times with rubber-coated bullets; others, fearing the involvement of the state security agencies, are forced into hiding.

At the heart of the film sits an intergenerational conflict connecting us to an important contemporary discourse on the conceptualisation of higher education as a public good. To date there have been unprecedented numbers involved, three deaths and 800 arrests.

By blending dramatic unfolding action with a multi-protagonist narrative, much of the drama lies in the internal struggles the activists have around the weight of leadership. Threaded through the film is a pulse of anticipation, shared across the generational divide, that somehow these youth have reached breaking point and won't back down until they achieve the kind of social transformation that previous generations had long given up on.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2018 / 85 minutes

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INVISIBLE HANDS

Director: Shraysi Tandon

'Invisible Hands' is the first feature documentary to expose child labor and trafficking within the supply chains of the world's biggest companies. It is a harrowing account of children as young as 6 years old making the products we use every day. 'Invisible Hands' marks the directorial debut of journalist Shraysi Tandon and is produced by Oscar winning filmmaker Charles Ferguson.

Participants include Kailash Satyarthi, Nicholas Kristof, Ben Skinner, Siddharth Kara and Mark Barenberg.

DVD / 2018 / 75 minutes

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RETHINKING CUBAN CIVIL SOCIETY: SOMETHING DEEPER THAN THE TRUTH

By Maria Isabel Alfonso

A young man in a baseball cap with "MIAMI" emblazoned on the front sits on a curb, looking at his phone. Beside him, an older man looks over his shoulder at the screen. Other Cubans sit on the curb or on the steps behind it, staring at their phones and tablets. In Cuba, a scene like this would have once been unthinkable. But since 2015, the government has loosened the rules on Internet access, allowing citizens to go online with their devices (for a fee) at designated WiFi hotspots.

The spread of online access-and people taking advantage of it for activities like blogging about politics and culture-is one of the signs of a renewed interest in bolstering Cuban civil society. But Cuba faces unique challenges in bolstering citizen engagement.

Near the start of RETHINKING CUBAN CIVIL SOCIETY, the film offers a definition of its central theme. "Civil society: The aggregate of non-governmental organizations and individuals that manifest the will and interests of citizens." Then, on the screen, the word "non-governmental" is crossed out. It is a striking visual illustration of Cuba's unique situation-one in which the public sector dominates much of society, playing an ambiguous role in civil society institutions.

Since the mid-1990s, Cuba has seen a rise in independent media, and a resurgence of movements fighting against racism, for economic justice and LGBTQI rights, and for greater democracy and citizen participation. In RETHINKING CUBAN CIVIL SOCIETY, Cuban academics, journalists and bloggers, and writers and musicians grapple with what it means to encourage healthy public participation and dissent in the context of Cuba: a country under embargo in which foreign-funded dissidents seek to overthrow the government, and at the same time a country in which the Communist Party has placed itself above the State.

In city parks and apartments, on stairwells, in classrooms, and in magazine offices, the people featured in RETHINKING CUBAN CIVIL SOCIETY grapple with these questions. Can more competitive elections and greater democracy exist in a one-party State? How can LGBTQI activists successfully influence government policy? How can access to the benefits of economic reforms allowing private business be extended to marginalized populations? Can the government help encourage a healthy, independent media eco-system? And how much of the stifling of civil society can be blamed on the embargo and how much is simply home-grown?

Thoughtful and engaging, the film is conveniently divided into chapters on class and activism, media, Internet and the blogosphere, political opposition, and Cuban civil society across international borders.

DVD (Spanish, With English Subtitles, Color) / 2018 / 37 minutes

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COMPANY TOWN

Directors: Natalie Kottke-Masocco, Erica Sardarian

Crossett, Arkansas is home to about 5,500 people, one Georgia-Pacific paper and chemical plant owned by billionaire brothers Charles Koch and David Koch, and a startling rate of cancer and illness. This groundbreaking investigative documentary follows local pastor David Bouie as he fights to save his community. It offers a rare look inside a small town ruled by a single company, where the government's environmental protections have been subverted and ignored, leaving its citizens to take on entrenched powers in a fight for justice.

Crossett's residents are up against one of the nation's largest industrial company: Koch Industries. Pastor Bouie worked at the Koch's Georgia-Pacific plant for ten years, and on the street where he lives, 11 out 15 households lost someone to cancer. He seeks answers and actions to help protect the lives of his neighbors, many of whom have worked their entire lives at the plant, making products like Angel Soft, Brawny Paper Towels, Quilted Northern and Dixie paper cups. He galvanizes the town, revealing untold stories of health and medical crises.

Crossett is just one of hundreds of towns across America polluted by big business and failed by local, state and federal environmental protections. Company Town ultimately asks, what do you do when the company you work for and live next to is making you sick? It is the story of a modern-day David vs. Goliath.

DVD / 2017 / 90 minutes

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BITTER MONEY

By Wang Bing

BITTER MONEY documents China's rapid economic and social transformation by following the rural workers who leave their Yunnan hometown to move to the city of Huzhou, one of the busiest cities of eastern China (with the highest number of part-time workers), to labor in its textile factories. But what they find are few opportunities and poor living conditions that push people, even couples, into violent and oppressive relations. The camera follows Xiao Min, Ling Ling, and Lao Yeh closely, capturing the emotions of their daily hard work and disappointments upon receiving their wages. The film deals directly with the effects of 21st-century capitalism, as filmmaker Wang Bing acts as witness to the lives of people forced to adapt to a new economic landscape.

DVD (Mandarin, Color, With English Subtitles) / 2016 / 152 minutes

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COMPLICIT

Directed by Heather White, Lynn Zhang

Benzene-poisoned, Foxconn factory worker takes his fight against the global smartphone industry from his hospital bed in China to the international stage.

Yi YeTing is struggling with occupational leukemia and trying to obtain compensation from his employer. Wanting to help others, he begins working for a non-profit that assists workers with occupational illness and injuries.

He discovers there are dozens of workers in his local area who were poisoned while making smartphones. Through research in the community, he discovers a leukemia cluster in the neighborhood surrounding Apple's main supplier Foxconn. Yi's research leads him to several workers and their families trying to survive while burdened with their health care costs. Powerful forces are unleashed as he confronts local factories, putting his own safety at risk.

DVD / 2016 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 89 minutes

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GREAT UNSUNG WOMEN OF COMPUTING: THE COMPUTERS, THE CODERS AND THE FUTURE MAKERS

By Kathy Kleiman, Jon Palfreman and Kate McMahon

In the United States, women are vastly underrepresented in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) fields, holding under 25% of STEM jobs and a disproportionately low share of STEM undergraduate degrees. Great Unsung Women of Computing is a series of three remarkable documentary films that show how women revolutionized the computing and Internet technology we use today, inspiring female students to believe that programming careers lie within their grasp.

The Computers features the extraordinary story of the ENIAC Programmers, six young women who programmed the world's first modern, programmable computer, ENIAC, as part of a secret WWII project. They programmed ENIAC without programming language (for none existed), and harnessed its power to perform advanced military calculations at lighting speeds. However, when the ENIAC was unveiled in 1946, the Programmers were never introduced and they became invisible. This stunning documentary features rare footage and never-before-seen interviews with the ENIAC Programmers. 70 years later, this is their story.

The Coders tells the story of two extraordinary women, Sarah Allen and Pavni Diwanji whose technologies revolutionized the Internet: Sarah co-invented Flash, the first multimedia platform supporting video, graphics, games and animation for the internet, while Pavni invented the Java servlet to allow web applications to respond quickly to requests from users everywhere.

In The Future Makers, Andrea Colaco, a young MIT PhD, shares her dream of a world in which we interact with our smart devices using natural hand gestures, not static keyboards or touchpads. She invented 3D "gestural recognition technology" and co-founded 3dim to develop and market it. In 2013, 3dim won MIT's $100K Entrepreneurship Prize and launched Andrea towards her dream of innovation and changing the world.

DVD (Color) / 2016 / 48 minutes

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LOVE & SOLIDARITY: JAMES LAWSON & NONVIOLENCE IN THE SEARCH FOR WORKERS' RIGHTS

Directed by Michael Honey

An exploration of nonviolence and organizing through the life and teachings of Rev. James Lawson.

LOVE & SOLIDARITY is an exploration of nonviolence and organizing through the life and teachings of Rev. James Lawson. Lawson provided crucial strategic guidance while working with Martin Luther King, Jr., in southern freedom struggles and the Memphis sanitation strike of 1968. Moving to Los Angeles in 1974, Lawson continued his nonviolence organizing in multi-racial community and worker coalitions that have helped to remake the LA labor movement.

Through interviews and historical documents, acclaimed labor and civil rights historian Michael Honey and award-winning filmmaker Errol Webber put Lawson's discourse on nonviolent direct action on the front burner of today's struggles against economic inequality, racism and violence, and for human rights, peace, and economic justice.

DVD / 2016 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adults) / 38 minutes

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MAID FOR EACH, A

By Maher Abi Samra

Domestic work is a real market in Lebanon, segmented according to the national and ethnic origins of the workers and in which the Lebanese employer is master and the worker the property. Zein owns a domestic worker agency in Beirut. He arranges for Asian and African women to work in Lebanese households and assists his clients in choosing "mail-order" housemaids that will best suit their needs. Advertisement, justice, police are on his side. He decides to open his agency for us.

DVD (Color) / 2016 / 67 minutes

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TRUE COST, THE

Directed by Andrew Morgan

Groundbreaking investigation of fast fashion reveals that while the price of clothing has been decreasing for decades the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically.

This is a story about clothing. It's about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. THE TRUE COST is a groundbreaking documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the untold story and asks us to consider, who really pays the price for our clothing?

Filmed in countries all over the world, from the brightest runways to the darkest slums, and featuring interviews with the world's leading influencers including Stella McCartney, Livia Firth, Vandana Shiva and Richard Wolff, THE TRUE COST is an unprecedented project that invites us on an eye opening journey around the world and into the lives of the many people and places behind our clothes.

DVD / 2015 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 92 minutes

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ENEMY WITHIN, THE

Directed by Owen Gower

The story of Britain's longest strike, the 1984-85 miners' strike, when Margaret Thatcher declared war on the unions, as told by those who lived through it.

THE ENEMY WITHIN provides unique insight into one of the most dramatic events in British history: the 1984-85 Miners' Strike. No experts. No politicians. Thirty years on, this is the raw first-hand experience of those who lived through Britain's longest strike. Follow the highs and lows of that life-changing year.

In 1984, a Conservative government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared war on Britain's unions, taking on the strongest in the country, the National Union of Mineworkers. Following a secret plan, the government began announcing the closure of coal mines, threatening not just an industry but whole communities and a way of life.

Against all the forces the government could throw at them, 160,000 coal miners took up the fight. THE ENEMY WITHIN tells the story of a group of miners and supporters who were on the frontline of that strike for an entire year. These were people that Margaret Thatcher labelled "the enemy within".

Using interviews and a wealth of rare and never before seen archival footage, THE ENEMY WITHIN draws together personal experiences - whether they're tragic, funny or terrifying - to take the audience on an emotionally powerful journey through the dramatic events of that year.

DVD / 2014 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adult) / 112 minutes

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HAND THAT FEEDS, THE

Directed by Rachel Lears, Robin Blotnick

Shy sandwich-maker Mahoma Lopez unites his undocumented immigrant coworkers to fight abusive conditions at a popular New York restaurant chain.

At a popular bakery cafe, residents of New York's Upper East Side get bagels and coffee served with a smile 24 hours a day. But behind the scenes, undocumented immigrant workers face sub-legal wages, dangerous machinery, and abusive managers who will fire them for calling in sick. Mild-mannered sandwich maker Mahoma Lopez has never been interested in politics, but in January 2012, he convinces a small group of his co-workers to fight back.

Risking deportation and the loss of their livelihood, the workers team up with a diverse crew of innovative young organizers and take the unusual step of forming their own independent union, launching themselves on a journey that will test the limits of their resolve. In one roller-coaster year, they must overcome a shocking betrayal and a two-month lockout. Lawyers will battle in back rooms, Occupy Wall Street protesters will take over the restaurant, and a picket line will divide the neighborhood. If they can win a contract, it will set a historic precedent for low-wage workers across the country. But whatever happens, Mahoma and his coworkers will never be exploited again.

DVD / 2014 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 84 minutes

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LAST SEASON, THE

Director: Sara Dosa

Every September over 200 seasonal workers, most of them Cambodian, Lao, Hmong, Mien and Thai, set up a temporary camp near the tiny town of Chemult, Oregon. They remain until the first snowfall, searching the lush woods of Klamath County for the rare matsutake, a fungus highly prized in Japan. This sensitive, probing documentary examines the bond between two of these hunters in one unusually hard season.

Elderly Roger Higgins is a Vietnam vet who returned from the war traumatized and alienated. "We couldn't get a job, so we made our own jobs. I would get out there in the woods and just work." Kouy Loch is a Cambodian immigrant whose experience as a starving slave laborer under the Khmer Rouge taught him the foraging skills that now afford him a living. The men cemented their relationship years before over the shared pain of their Southeast Asian experience, becoming almost like father and son as they traipsed through the trees together. But Roger is too sick to do much hunting this year, and Kouy must walk the forest on his own.

The Last Season contrasts the past with the present, the camaraderie of the mushroom hunters' camp with Higgins's remote home in the woods and the hope of a yearly treasure hunt with the vagaries of climate and falling prices. The result is a poetic film about friendship, nature and life.

DVD / 2014 / 78 minutes

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MINERS SHOT DOWN

By Rehad Desai

In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa's biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days into the strike, the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress it, killing 34 and injuring many more. The police insisted that they shot in selfdefense. MINERS SHOT DOWN tells a different story, one that unfolds in real time over seven days, like a ticking time bomb.

The film weaves together the central point of view of three strike leaders, Mambush, Tholakele and Mzoxolo, with compelling police footage, TV archive and interviews with lawyers representing the miners in the ensuing commission of inquiry into the massacre. What emerges is a tragedy that arises out of the deep fault lines in South Africa's nascent democracy, of enduring poverty and a twenty year old, unfulfilled promise of a better life for all.

A campaigning film, beautifully shot, sensitively told, with a haunting soundtrack, MINERS SHOT DOWN reveals how far the African National Congress has strayed from its progressive liberationist roots.

DVD (Color) / 2014 / 86 minutes

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STORM MAKERS, THE

Director: Guillaume Suon

Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians work abroad, and over a third have been sold as slaves. Most are young women, held prisoner and forced to work in horrific conditions, sometimes as prostitutes. Featuring brutally candid testimony, The Storm Makers is a chilling expose of Cambodia's human trafficking underworld and an eye-opening look at the complex cycle of poverty, despair and greed that fuels this modern slave trade.

At the age of 16, Aya was sold to work as a maid in Malaysia. She was exploited, beaten and eventually ran away, only to be captured and raped. When she returns to Cambodia with an infant son, just as poor as when she left, her mother greets her not with joy, but with anger that her daughter has come back with yet another mouth to feed instead of money. "I should have died over there," says Aya in a singsong, childlike voice that masks the horrors she endured.

Pou Houy, 52, is a successful trafficker who runs a recruitment agency in Phnom Penh and claims to have sold more than 500 girls. Shockingly outspoken and expressing no remorse, he sees himself as a smart businessman and good Christian.

Pou Houy's enterprise relies on local recruiters who bring him candidates from their rural communities. One of these is Ming Dy, who sold her own daughter and continues to supply Houy with new recruits from her village. In one wrenching scene, Ming Dy's husband cannot bring himself to speak to his daughter when she calls from a new job abroad, where she earns a dollar a day. "I told my wife not to sell young people from the village," he says. "Buddha condemns those who sell people like animals."

As Amnesty International, the United Nations, other NGOs, and governments argue over the best way to protect vulnerable migrants, The Storm Makers shows the real consequences for individuals, their families and communities.

DVD (Khmer with English Subtitles) / 2014 / 66 minutes

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WE THE WORKERS

By Wen Hai, Zeng Jinyan

Shot over a six-year period (2009-2015) in the industrial heartland of south China, a major hub in the global supply chain, WE THE WORKERS follows labor activists as they find common ground with workers, helping them negotiate with local officials and factory owners over wages and working conditions. Threats, attacks, detention and boredom become part of their daily lives as they struggle to strengthen worker solidarity in the face of threats and pressures from the police and their employers. In the process, we see in their words and actions the emergence of a nascent working class consciousness and labor movement in China.

DVD (English, Mandarin, Color, With English Subtitles) / 2014 / 174 minutes

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COAL MINER'S DAY, THE

By Gael Mocaer

"That's the fire emergency system. If there's a fire, it bursts and the water falls down," one of the mineworkers explains. He is talking about a few bags of water, all the size of a fist, somewhat haphazardly hung from the low ceiling of the mineshaft. "Like a huge waterfall."

Every day hundreds of men risk life and limb going down into the Buzhanska mine in the Ukraine to mine coal with rusty old tools from the Soviet era. It is heavy, unhealthy, hazardous work, which thanks to the relatively high pay - two to four times what people earn in the city - is nevertheless tempting to many young men. Once a year, they are honored during the Day of the Mineworker - another relic from the Soviet era, when the most deserving workers receive a rose from the director of the mine in a kitschy ceremony.

For the rest of the year the workers are ignored, pestered or intimidated by their bosses, and no one is concerned with their safety. THE COAL MINER'S DAY documents their work underground, their comradeship and dissatisfaction in and around the mine over the course of a year. Gradually overcoming the skepticism of the mineworkers, the filmmaker captures a series of oppressive, revealing moments.

DVD (Color) / 2013 / 80 minutes

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MAESTRA

By Catherine Murphy

In 1961, over 250,000 Cubans joined their country's National Literacy Campaign and taught 707,000 other Cubans to read and write. Almost half of these volunteer teachers were under 18. More than half were women.

Narrated by Alice Walker, Maestra (Spanish for teacher) explores the experiences of nine women who, as young girls, helped eradicate Cuban illiteracy within one year. Interweaving recent interviews, archival footage, and Campaign photos, this lively documentary includes one of the first Cubans of her generation to call herself a feminist and one of the first openly proud members of Cuba's LGBT community. With wit and spirit, all recall negotiating for autonomy and independence in a culture still bound by patriarchal structures.

Eight years in the making, Maestra highlights the will and courage that made the monumental endeavor possible and the pivotal role of women's and youth empowerment in building a new society.

DVD (Spanish, Color, With English subtitles) / 2013 / 33 minutes

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TRICKED

Director: Jane Wells & John-Keith Wasson

Modern-day slavery is alive and well in the United States, as thousands of victims are trafficked across the country to satisfy America's $3-billion-a-year sex trafficking industry. Meet the pimps, the johns, the police, the parents and the victims of the thriving sex trade in Tricked, a comprehensive and daring documentary that uncovers one of America's darkest secrets.

DVD / 2013 / 75 minutes

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DETROPIA

Directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

A vivid portrait of Detroit, America's first major post-industrial city, as it struggles to deal with the consequences of a broken economic system.

Detroit's story has encapsulated the iconic narrative of America over the last century...the Great Migration of African Americans escaping Jim Crow; the rise of manufacturing and the middle class; the love affair with automobiles; the flowering of the American dream; and now the collapse of the economy and the fading American mythos.

With its vivid, painterly palette and haunting score, DETROPIA sculpts a dreamlike collage of a grand city teetering on the brink of dissolution. These soulful pragmatists and stalwart philosophers strive to make ends meet and make sense of it all, refusing to abandon hope or resistance. Their grit and pluck embody the spirit of the Motor City as it struggles to survive postindustrial America and begins to envision a radically different future.

DVD / 2012 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 86 minutes

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HOUSEMAIDS

By Gabriel Mascaro

Housemaids are an integral part of the household in Brazil, and participate in the day-to-day life of the family. The employment of housemaids is almost obligatory among the middle and upper classes of the country. The vast majority of these housemaids are black women, who face high levels of inequality based on their gender, race and social class. Their role in the household raises important questions about public and private space, endurance and choice, and labor and family life.

For HOUSEMAIDS, director Gabriel Mascaro asked seven adolescents to film their family's housemaids for one week, and hand the footage over to him. Their images uncover the complex relationship that exists between housemaids and their employers, a relationship that confuses intimacy and power in the workplace and provides us with an insight into the echoes of a colonial past that linger in contemporary Brazil.

HOUSEMAIDS exposes and explores a hidden daily reality of Brazilian life.

DVD (Color) / 2012 / 76 minutes

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MEN AT LUNCH

Directorr: Sean O Cualain

New York City, 1932. The country is in the throes of the Great Depression, the previous decade's boom of Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants has led to unprecedented urban expansion, and in the midst of an unseasonably warm autumn, steelworkers risk life and limb building skyscrapers high above the streets of Manhattan.

In Men at Lunch, director Sean O Cualain tells the story of "Lunch atop a Skyscraper", the iconic photograph taken during the construction of the GE Building that depicts eleven workmen taking their lunch break while casually perched along a steel girder - boots dangling 850 feet above the sidewalk of 41st Street .This documentary takes the audience into the archival halls of Rockefeller Center and the Corbis collection to reveal never-before-seen artifacts from the news outlets of the Great Depression.

Part homage, part historical investigation, Men at Lunch is the revealing tale of an American icon, an unprecedented race to the sky and the immigrant workers that built New York. For 80 years, the identity of the eleven men - and the photographer that immortalized them - remained a mystery: their stories, lost in time, subsumed by the fame of the image itself.

DVD / 2012 / 67 minutes

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SHIFT CHANGE

Directed by Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin

Investigates employee-owned businesses that provide secure, dignified jobs in democratic workplaces even in today's economic crisis.

Shift Change: Putting Democracy to Work tells the little known stories of employee-owned businesses that compete successfully in today's economy while providing secure, dignified jobs in democratic workplaces.

With the long decline in US manufacturing and today's economic crisis, millions have been thrown out of work, and many are losing their homes. The usual economic solutions are not working, so some citizens and public officials are ready to think outside of the box, to reinvent our failing economy in order to restore long term community stability and a more egalitarian way of life.

There is growing interest in firms that are owned and managed by their workers. Such firms tend to be more profitable and innovative, and more committed to the communities where they are based. Yet the public has little knowledge of their success, and the promise they offer for a better life.

Amongst the organizations featured in SHIFT CHANGE are:

Mondragon Cooperative Corporation - Begun in the 1950s, the Mondragon co-ops have transformed a depressed area of Spain into one of the most productive in Europe with a high standard of living and an egalitarian way of life. They are owned and managed by their workers. Seeing the achievements of the MCC helps to overcome the idea-widespread in North America-that worker run cooperatives can only exist on the economic fringe.

The Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, OH - This is an ambitious urban redevelopment model, directly inspired by Mondragon, where local institutions and public officials are supporting green cooperatives of previously marginalized, predominantly African American workers, who provide commercial laundry services, install solar energy systems, and grow vegetables in vast urban greenhouses.

Arizmendi Association of Cooperatives, San Francisco, California - Started 30 years ago, there are now six of these independent worker owned and managed cooperative bakeries that work together to provide the financial and legal services they need, and to incubate new coop bakeries.

Equal Exchange, Boston MA: Founded in 1986, Equal Exchange is one of the largest roasters of fair trade coffee in the world.

DVD / 2012 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 69 minutes

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TIMBER GANG (AKA LAST LUMBERJACKS) (MU BANG)

Directed by YU Guangyi

Yu Guangyi's stunning debut explores a grueling winter amongst loggers in Northeast China as they employ traditional practices through one last, fateful expedition. A lasting testament to disappearing traditions, Last Lumberjacks "is a fascinating glimpse at a rare way of life that few will ever witness" (Ain't It Cool News)

For generations, the lumberjacks of Heilongjiang, China have made their living harvesting timber amidst a barren, wintry landscape. These woodcutters confront the elements, living in makeshift cabins surrounded by snow and ice. hand tools, sleds and horses are the only technology they employ to drag massive trees down the perilous slopes of Black Bear Valley. At constant risk of injury and death, they attempt to appease the mountain gods with ancient rituals and sacrifices. Despite their heroic efforts to subsist, the deforestation caused by their decades-long customs my lead to their ultimate demise.

DVD (Color, Northeastern Chinese dialect with English Subtitles) / 2012 / 90 minutes

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AMERICAN TEACHER

Director: Vanessa Roth

As the debate over America's schools rages on, one thing everyone agrees on is the need for great teachers. While research proves that teachers are the most important school factor in a child's success, American Teacher reveals the frustrations facing today's educators: the difficulty of retaining talented new teachers and why many of the best teachers are forced to leave the profession altogether. Can we reform teaching in the U.S. and turn it into a prestigious, financially attractive and competitive profession?

DVD / 2011 / 81 minutes

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APACHE 8

By Sande Zeig

Between 1974 and 2005, a crew of women from the White Mountain Apache Tribe fought raging fires in Arizona and other states. Featuring extensive interviews, childhood photos, and on-location and news footage, this insightful and honest documentary profiles the Apache 8 group through four women, who share their experiences. Interweaving the scenes of raging fires, intense training sessions, and disrupted home life are personal stories of sacrifice, tragedy, pride, and accomplishment. While the women may have initially set out to try and earn a living in their economically ravaged community, they quickly discover an inner strength and resilience that speaks to their traditions and beliefs as Native women.

DVD (English, Apache, Color) / 2011 / 57 minutes

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SCARLET ROAD

By Catherine Scott

Impassioned about freedom of sexual expression, Australian sex worker Rachel Wotton has become highly specialized in working with clients with disabilities. Rachel's philosophy - that human tough and sexual intimacy can be some of the most therapeutic aspects to our existence - has made a dramatic impact on the lives of her clients, from improved mental health to actually regaining body movement. SCARLET ROAD follows Rachel as she strives to increase awareness and access to sexual expression for disabled people through her foundation, "Touching Base," which works to gain rights for sex workers and end the social stigma and discriminatory practices that surround their occupation. In addition, she obtains an MS in Sexual Health, all to further her mission to end the stigma placed on two marginalized groups.

DVD (Color) / 2011 / 70 minutes

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BROTHER TOWNS / PUEBLOS HERMANOS

Directed by Charles D. Thompson, Jr. and Michael Davey

An uplifting story about Jupiter, Florida's humane response to an influx of day laborers from Jacaltenango, Guatemala.

Brother Towns is a story of two towns linked by immigration, family, and work: Jacaltenango, a highland Maya town in Guatemala; and Jupiter, a coastal resort town where many Jacaltecos have settled in Florida.

Brother Towns chronicles a story of how and why people migrate across borders, how people make and remake their communities when they travel thousands of miles from home, and how people maintain families despite their travel. Because we are all immigrants, this is a universal human story, and a quintessential American one. All of us understand family.

Brother Towns is also a story of local and international controversy. News of undocumented immigrants is familiar in nearly every community across the U.S., and citizens must choose how they respond to this issue.

Our story includes voices of those opposed to undocumented immigrants as well as advocates helping migrants who seek work and hope, whether documented or not.

DVD / 2010 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 58 minutes

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CIRCO

Director: Ross McElwee

Gorgeously filmed along the back roads of rural Mexico, Circo follows the Ponce family's hardscrabble circus as it struggles to stay together despite mounting debt, dwindling audiences, and a simmering family conflict. Tino, the ringmaster, is driven by his dream to lead his parents' circus to success and corrals the energy of his whole family, including his four young children, towards this singular goal. But his wife Ivonne is determined to make a change. Feeling exploited by her in-laws, she longs to return to her kids a childhood lost to laboring in the circus. Through this intricately woven story of a marriage in trouble and of a century-old family tradition that hangs in the balance, Circo opens the viewer to the luminous world of a traveling circus while examining the universal themes of family bonds, filial responsibility, and the weight of cultural inheritance.

DVD / 2010 / 75 minutes

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DISH: WOMEN, WAITRESSING AND THE ART OF SERVICE

By Maya Gallus

Why do women bring your food at local diners, while in high-end establishments waiters are almost always men? DISH, by Maya Gallus, whose acclaimed GIRL INSIDE (2007) won Canada's Gemini Award for documentary directing, answers this question in a delicious, well-crafted deconstruction of waitressing and our collective fascination with an enduring popular icon. Digging beyond the obvious, Gallus, who waited tables in her teens, explores diverse dynamics between food servers and customers, as well as cultural biases and attitudes they convey. Her feminist analysis climbs the socio-economic ladder-from the bustling world of lower-end eateries, where women prevail as wait staff, to the more genteel male-dominated sphere of haute cuisine. Astute, amusing observations from women on the job in Ontario's truck stop diners, Montreal's topless"sexy restos," a Parisian super-luxe restaurant, and Tokyo's fantasy "maid cafés", as well as male customers' telling comments, disclose how gender, social standing, earning opportunities, and working conditions intersect in the food service industry.

DVD (English, French, Japanese, Color) / 2010 / 70 minutes

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