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Labor Studies

PRISMS AND PORTRAITS: THE FILMS OF ROSINE MBAKAM

PRISMS AND PORTRAITS: THE FILMS OF ROSINE MBAKAM is a collectable DVD set that contains four of her critically acclaimed, award-winning features as well as two previously unavailable shorts films. Rosine Mbakam's powerful and empathetic documentary films focus on the migrant experiences of women and the legacies of colonialism. Cameroonian-born and Belgium-based, she constructs films with a patient rigor devoted to giving the women she features space to tell their own stories.

Disc 1: The Two Faces of Bamileke Woman

Rosine Mbakam left Cameroon at 27 to live in Belgium. Seven years later-having studied film and married a European-she returns, accompanied by her son. Motivated by a desire to better understand her past and the place she grew up, Rosine is nonetheless surprised by the revelations her mother and other women make in startlingly intimate conversations.

THE TWO FACES OF A BAMILEKE WOMAN is a sharply observed, nuanced and powerful feature documentary debut that captures the relationship between a woman and her mother-and subtly expresses the dislocation of emigration.

Also includes two short films, YOU WILL BE MY ALLY and DOORS OF THE PAST.

Disc 2: Chez Jolie Coiffure

Sabine's hands move quickly and precisely as she tightly braids hair in her tiny salon. The sign outside offers African, European, or American hairstyles. More than a place for women to get their hair done, Jolie Coiffure serves as a community hub for West African women-many from Cameroon, like Sabine. Fueled by endless cans of soda and cups of McDonald's coffee, she recruits for a tontine-an investment scheme paying each member a yearly annuity, organizes accommodation for a pregnant woman who lacks immigration papers, and, in quieter, more introspective moments, tells her own harrowing journey to Belgium after working as a domestic under terrible conditions in Lebanon.

CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE is a highly revealing documentary, capturing the day-to-day lives and concerns of immigrant West African women in a space they can call their own.

Disc 3: Delphine's Prayers

Delphine, who is only identified by her first name, is quick-witted, engaging, passionate, and intense. Born and raised in Cameroon, at 30, she has survived a series of personal catastrophes. Her mother died in childbirth, and her father did little to care for his children. She was raped at 13, became a mother soon after, and supported herself with sex work on the streets of Douala. Now, she lives with a Belgian husband three times her age and their children, estranged from much of her family. In DELPHINE'S PRAYERS, she frankly shares her experiences with director Rosine Mbakam over several interview sessions.

Like Mbakam's previous documentary, the acclaimed CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE, DELPHINE'S PRAYERS is shot in a single room. Her films offer an intimate glimpse into the lives of women whose stories are rarely seen on camera.

Disc 4: Prism

Is the technology of photography and motion pictures inherently racist?

For PRISM, Belgian filmmaker An van. Dienderen invited Rosine Mbakam, from Cameroon, and Eleonore Yameogo from Burkina Faso, to work together on a film in which the differences in their skin color, and experiences as filmmakers, serve as points-of-departure to explore this provocative question. Invented and standardized with white skin in mind, "the aesthetics and emulsions weren't created for us," the film director and actor Sylvestre Amoussou says in PRISM. And that underlying issue remains, even with digital technology: such white-centricity has meant that photographic media assume and privilege whiteness. To tackle the issue of racism in Western filmmaking, PRISM takes what some see as simple technical problems, and while creating powerful counter-images and methods of working, explores their insidious personal, cultural, and historical ramifications.

4 DVDs (Cameroon Pidgin, With French, English Subtitles, Color) / 2022 / 349 minutes

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1970

By Tomasz Wolski

In 1970, protests broke out in several coastal cities in Communist Poland. Workers went on strikes to object to price increases. Growing numbers of protesters walked out onto the streets. As the situation became tense, a crisis team gathered in the capital.

With the help of animations combined with telephone recordings, we can peek behind the closed doors of dignitaries' offices. Hundreds of cigarettes are smoked, conversations get cutoff, and strategies to break up protesters and future repressions are planned.

However, the protests got out of control, we can witness the fear, confusion, and brutality of the decision-makers. The militia makes use of their batons. Shots are fired and people die. 1970 is a story about a rebellion but told from the perspective of the oppressors.

DVD / 2021 / 70 minutes

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ALGREN

Director: Michael Caplan

The documentary ALGREN is a journey through the gritty world, brilliant mind, and noble heart of Nelson Algren. Exploding onto the national scene in 1950 after winning the first-ever National Book Award for The Man with the Golden Arm, Algren defined post-war American urban fiction with his gritty, brilliant depiction of working class Chicago.

Hemingway declared him second only to Faulkner; Vonnegut dubbed him a literary groundbreaker. Hollywood soon came calling, immortalizing his breakout novel with none other than Frank Sinatra in the lead role. Algren even won a notorious place in both the heart and work of France's premiere feminist, Simone de Beauvoir.

Including never-before-seen archival footage, newly uncovered audio recordings and his own rarely seen, personal photo collages, ALGREN charts the rise and fall of a man whose transgressions, compassion and thirst for justice pushed him to dedicate his life and career to giving a voice to the voiceless. Through interviews with Algren's friends, literary experts and artists - including William Friedkin, Russell Banks, Philip Kaufman, Billy Corgan and John Sayles - the film is an intimate, witty and even antagonistic portrait of a tireless champion of America's most marginalized.

DVD / 2021 / 85 minutes

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ASCENSION

By Jessica Kingdon

Factory workers diligently parse fabrics and prepare plastic products-like water bottles and binoculars-in clusters and in an assembly line. Men weld metal cylinders with precision, and a networking conference devotes its attention to training a predominantly female audience how to excel in business etiquette.

These and many other absorbing vignettes are what make up the central focus of Jessica Kingdon's Ascension: an exploration of contemporary China's identity as it relates to its vision of consumerism, innovation, and social standing. Kingdon's rich and unobtrusive access into these arenas captures revealing moments with impressive patience and restraint-but also with surprising moments of humor. The film's curious and observational lens delivers a hypnotic quality in its visuals, immersing the viewer in the stark differences between social classes, and how the struggles of the working class are laid bare in trying to realize the "Chinese Dream." Implementing a large-scale visual canvas, Kingdon scrutinizes China's imposing standing as a global superpower and embeds the viewer in the work ethic and lifestyle of its citizens-showcasing their collective pursuit of success through hard labor and material wealth.

DVD / 2021 / 97 minutes

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SOUL OF A FARMER, THE

Director: Roger Sherman

The Soul of A Farmer follows Patty Gentry, a former chef, as she battles to earn a living on her three acre Early Girl Farm on Long Island. Isabella Rossellini, from whom Patty rents her land tells us, "Patty is the Picasso of vegetables!"

The documentary upends the romance of farm-to-table - buying fresh produce directly from farmers markets and at farm stands is wonderful, but the farmer's life is a constant struggle. We watch Patty work her butt off (with her small, mostly female team) seven days a week, growing the vegetables her top chef clients treasure. Patty's passion is to constantly improve her soil, increase her yield of organic vegetables, and just as urgently scramble to stay afloat.

DVD / 2021 / 35 minutes

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COST OF LIVING, THE

Directors: Sean Blacknell, Wayne Walsh

Do we need a Universal Basic Income?

From the filmmaking team of "The Future of Work and Death" comes "The Cost of Living," a documentary that explores the current socio-economic state of Britain and considers how the idea of a basic income could minimize poverty and alleviate the sociological toll of a growing precarious class. The film focuses on the feasibility of a basic income, John Rawls' theory of justice, automation and ultimately asks should there still be a cost attributed to survival?

Featuring George Monbiot, David Graber, Diane Coyle, Guy Standing & Annie Miller

DVD / 2020 / 45 minutes

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GIRL WITH THE RIVET GUN, THE

Directed by Anne de Mare, Kirsten Kelly

Takes you beyond the iconic "We Can Do It" poster girl to the millions of real-life women who shook the foundations of the American workplace in WWII.

Built entirely by women filmmakers, THE GIRL WITH THE RIVET GUN is an unconventional animated documentary short based on the adventures of three real-life "Rosie the Riveters"-Esther Horne, Susan Taylor King and Mildred Crow Sargent. From vastly different backgrounds, these three women came of age in an America united by war but struggling with divisions of gender, economics and race.

THE GIRL WITH THE RIVET GUN serves as an entry point into a rich, layered, and adventurous rewriting of history as herstory, inspiring conversations about working women everywhere and taking viewers beyond the iconic "We Can Do It" poster girl to the millions of real-life women who shook the foundations of the American workplace-forever changing not only their own lives, but the very perception of what women can do.

DVD / 2020 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 15 minutes

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HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS, A

By Stan Neumann

The working class has played an essential part of European countries' history - through revolutions, wars and social progress. In four episodes of a spectacular tale, this show reminds us of what our societies owe to the workers' movements and its struggles.

The story begins in the 18th century, but their fight carries on today. Much of our current democracies' institutions and values flow from older working class demands: universal suffrage or social solidarity are some of its most telling examples. Our culture - the way we dress, the songs we listen to, the movies we watch and the mass-media themselves - heavily relies on the workers' erstwhile popular culture. Finally, all across Asia, Africa and Latin America, millions of women and men experience lives similar to the 18th and 19th centuries' European working class. We will bring out the present's ever looming shadow by constantly flowing back and forth between history and current situations. Those contemporary testimonies and photographs will help us gather the threads of memory between yesterday and today.

Episode 1 - This episode focuses on England and Belgium, two pioneers of the industrial revolution. With the beginnings of the "Factory System" comes a new conception of work and time, which the uprooted workers will have to accept. This violent shock triggers a certain class consciousness that will make history.

Episode 2 - The revolution should have broken out in England, but it is the French workers who start to fight back. The barricade is their preferred weapon, made of odds and ends, urban and defensive, it is in their image. A look back at the emergence of the great insurgencies that shook Europe at the end of the century, leading to the construction of a new image of the working class: that of the disciplined army of modern-day workers.

Episode 3 - Europe has industrialized to the point that the war which breaks out in 1914 is also industrialized. This episode immerses the viewer in an unusual time when the laws of the front extend to the factories, and the American methods of rationalization come to make the "good worker" a "good soldier". From the Russian Revolution to the Spanish Civil War, the demands of the working class are materializing.

Episode 4 - A bearer of hope and utopias in troubled times, the working class acquires an exceptional influence in the second half of the 20th century. Today, however, we speak of the disappearance of the working class. No more common identity, no more class consciousness… how does one explain the apparent inevitable decline of this population?

DVD (English, French, Color, Closed Captioned, Black and White, With English Subtitles) / 2020 / 208 minutes

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EVERY PULSE OF THE HEART IS WORK

By Pawel Wojtasik

Every Pulse of the Heart is Work - is work, but work as understood as devotion.

Five years in the making, the film consists of meditative portraits of a broad range of laborers, such as a crane operator, a surgeon, a weaver, a priest, a masseur, a tabla drum maker, and others. The camera enters into an intimately attentive relation with the subjects and their workplaces: a cremation ground, a hospital, an apartment tower under construction. The streets of the city themselves form an important work site, where much of the activity takes place.

With his attentive, unobtrusive approach to his subjects, Wojtasik simultaneously explores labor as a material process, a state of mind, and an integral component of a larger network of social and economic relations. The work of a dentist is granted the same time and attention as that of a street beggar; both forms of labor take place on the street, where they can be observed both by the filmmakers and the inhabitants of Varanasi as they go about their daily lives. In the end, the singular portraits of Indian workers build towards a composite vision of society, where each has a place in the tangled web of human endeavor.

DVD / 2019 / 86 minutes

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NO TIME TO WASTE: THE URGENT MISSION OF BETTY REID SOSKIN

Directed by Carl Bidleman

Celebrates legendary 99-year-old park ranger Betty Reid Soskin's inspiring life, work and urgent mission to restore critical missing chapters of America's story.

NO TIME TO WASTE celebrates legendary 99-year-old park ranger Betty Reid Soskin's inspiring life, work and urgent mission to restore critical missing chapters of America's story. The film follows her journey as an African American woman presenting her personal story from a kitchen stool in a national park theater to media interviews and international audiences who hang on every word she utters.

The documentary captures her fascinating life-from the experiences of a young Black woman in a WWII segregated union hall, through her multi-faceted career as a singer, activist, mother, legislative representative and park planner to her present public role.

At the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park, Betty illuminates the invisible histories of African Americans and other people of color. Her efforts have changed the way the National Park Service conveys this history to audiences across the U.S., challenging us all to move together toward a more perfect union.

DVD / 2019 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 52 minutes

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SHADOW OF GOLD, THE

Directed by Denis Delestrac, Robert Lang, Sally Blake

An unflinching look at how the world's favorite heavy metal is extracted from the earth.

THE SHADOW OF GOLD is a global investigation of how the world's favorite heavy metal is extracted from the earth. The film explores both sides of the industry: the big-time mining companies that dig deep and lop off mountaintops to extract gold from low-grade ore, and the small-time miners-an estimated 20 million people in the world's poorest nations-who extract gold by hand, often producing just enough to survive.

From communities threatened by proposed mining projects in the U.S. and Canada to small-time and artisanal miners risking their health-and their lives-in countries like Congo, Peru and China, THE SHADOW OF GOLD leads viewers from these flashpoints of extraction through loosely regulated supply networks to the very top of the global supply chain, where conflict gold reaches consumers who are unaware of the origins of this coveted commodity.

Finally the film engages with engineers, scientists, and Fair Trade advocates who are working with miners to tackle gold's worst environmental and social problems.

DVD / 2019 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 79 minutes

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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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WINE CRUSH (VAS-Y COUPE!)

Director: Laura Naylor

Wine Crush (Vas-y Coupe!) is a beautifully observed portrait of seasonal labor at a family-owned vineyard in France.

Every year for the harvest, a motley team of laborers travels from the north of France to the celebrated Selosse vineyard in the Champagne region. Many of them have been picking these grapes for a quarter century and, though the work can be grueling, there is a cherished comfort in the comradery, the lovingly prepared meals and the late-night partying. But as the winemaker begins to hand over the business to his son - and younger workers increasingly join the team - it is unclear if this harvest tradition can endure.

Weaving intimate verite scenes through the whirlwind labor of the harvest, Wine Crush (Vas-y Coupe!) is an immersive and affectionate look at a revolutionary natural Champagne-maker and his loyal workers, and an exploration of French social class, tradition and community.

DVD (French with English subtitles) / 2019 / 92 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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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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SILENT TRANSFORMATION, A

By Simon Brothers, Luke Mistruzzi, Anton Smolski, Mark Preston

The transformative power of the co-operative enterprise model, illustrated with many inspirational examples.

The co-operative movement was built by people who took on the responsibility for their collective well-being in the face of government neglect, economic exclusion and cultural discrimination.

As the modern economy increasingly denies vast sectors of the population basic amenities for decent life, this co-operative spirit is as critical as ever. However, over the years the co-op sector has become insular and poorly understood.

A SILENT TRANSFORMATION sets out to explore the innovative self-help efforts of different communities across the Province of Ontario, Canada. By addressing their needs collectively they are helping to regain the radical vision of co-operation.

In these communities are the seeds of economic democracy, global solidarity, and a new popular movement to transform society!

Will it grow and flourish?

DVD / 2018 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 70 minutes

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AMERICAN SOCIALIST: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF EUGENE VICTOR DEBS

Director: Yale Strom

Prolific filmmaker (and Klezmer band leader!) Yale Strom has just completed his latest documentary. The director of the classic films The Last Klezmer, At the Crossroads and many others has turned his attention to an early American political hero.

Bernie Sanders inspired a generation - but who inspired him? American Socialist: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs is the culmination of five years of research and production. Its inspiration was the use of the word "socialist" as a political epithet, and director Yale Strom wanted to define and contextualize the term.

Most people in America do not know that the contemporary political movement to address income inequality began over 100 years ago with Eugene Victor Debs. This film traces the history of American populism, with the man who inspired progressive ideas - from FDR's New Deal to Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign. This is an objective but passionate history of the movement as championed and founded by Debs, a movement that continues to have an impact on our daily lives today.

DVD / 2017 / 97 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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FINE LINE, A (EDUCATIONAL VERSION)

Directed by Joanna James

Explores why less than 7% of head chefs and restaurant owners are women, when traditionally women have always held the central role in the kitchen.

Featuring intimate interviews with world-renowned chefs like Dominique Crenn, Lidia Bastianich, Cat Cora, Elena Arzak, Elizabeth Falkner, Maria Loi, Sylvia Weinstock, Michael Anthony and others, A FINE LINE explores pressing issues faced by women in the culinary arts and across all industries, including sexual and workplace harassment, access to capital, unequal pay, and lack of paid family leave and affordable childcare.

An uplifting American success story about perseverance, family, and food, A FINE LINE follows the personal story of Valerie James, a small town restaurateur with a larger than life personality who raised Joanna as a single mother on a mission to do what she loves while raising two kids and the odds stacked against her.

DVD / 2017 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 56 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) / 2017 / 174 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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COMPANY TOWN: THE DARK SIDE OF THE SHARING ECONOMY

Directed by Deborah Kaufman, Alan Snitow

A grassroots movement challenges Citizens United, corporate power, and moguls of the "sharing economy" to stop gentrification and wrest back control of San Francisco's future.

The once free-spirited city of San Francisco is now a "Company Town," a playground for tech moguls of the "sharing economy." Airbnb is the biggest hotel, Uber privatizes transit. And now these companies want political power as well.

Meanwhile, middle class and ethnic communities are driven out by gentrification, skyrocketing rents and evictions, sparking a grassroots backlash. Can an insurgent electoral campaign overcome corporate power and billionaires' megabucks to change a city's course?

COMPANY TOWN shows how a grassroots coalition of unions, tenants, neighborhoods of color, activists and artists can come together to win.

DVD / 2016 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adults) / 77 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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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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