Children of Labor: A Finnish-American History
1977 · 55m · Documentary · History
How Finnish immigrants came into contact — and conflict — with industrial America. Three generations of Finnish-Americans recount how they coped with harsh realities by creating their own institutions: churches, temperance halls, socialist halls, and cooperatives.
More Like This
From Spikes to Spindles
1976
This raw, gutsy portrait of New York's Chinatown captures the early days of an emerging consciousness in the community. We see a Chinatown rarely depicted, a vibrant community whose young and old join forces to protest police brutality and hostile real estate developers. With bold strokes, it paints an overview of the community and its history, from the early laborers driving spikes into the transcontinental railroad to the garment workers of today.
More info →
A Love Letter to Coopers Cafe
★ 10
During the summer of 2023, my father decided to hang up the boots and walk away from the family business of 25 years. This is my love letter to the cafe in which my family and I have worked, encapsulating the good vibes and cheery nature the business held for a quarter of a century.
More info →
Harvest of Loneliness
2010
Shedding light on the current debate over immigration reform and the use of "guest workers" in American agriculture, this historical documentary, "Harvest Of Loneliness: The Bracero Program," examines what was known as the Bracero Program-a system put in place from 1942 to 1964 to recruit Mexican farm laborers for temporary work in the United States.
More info →
The Curious Case of Curt Flood
2011 · ★ 8
Inside the life of former baseball star Curt Flood whose fight against MLB's 'Reserve Clause' led to reform, but destroyed his career.
More info →Nigel 2
2019
An orphan in 18th century London lashes out against the harrowing child labor market.
More info →Common Cause: The Story of the Operation Solidarity Coalition
1984
A documentary telling the story of the 1983 Solidarity strike in “British Columbia,” a key point in the introduction of neoliberal economic policy in the province.
More info →
Miners Shot Down
2014 · ★ 9
In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days later the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. Using the point of view of the Marikana miners, Miners Shot Down follows the strike from day one, showing the courageous but isolated fight waged by a group of low-paid workers against the combined forces of the mining company Lonmin, the ANC government and their allies in the National Union of Mineworkers.
More info →
Blueberry Waggle Dance
2024
It's a warm spring night, and the bee cowboys of Prince Edward Island begin rounding up their hives.
More info →
Obaida
2019
OBAIDA, a short film by Matthew Cassel, explores a Palestinian child’s experience of Israeli military arrest. Each year, some 700 Palestinian children undergo military detention in a system where ill-treatment is widespread and institutionalized. For these young detainees, few rights are guaranteed, even on paper. After release, the experience of detention continues to shape and mark former child prisoners’ path forward.
More info →
In the Belly of AI
2025 · ★ 7
Magical, autonomous, all-powerful… Artificial intelligences feed our dreams as well as our nightmares. But while tech giants promise the advent of a new humanity, the reality of their production remains totally hidden. While data centers are concreting landscapes and drying up rivers, millions of workers around the world are preparing the billions of data that will feed the voracious algorithms of Big Tech, at the cost of their mental and emotional health. They are hidden in the belly of AI. Could they be the collateral damage of the ideology of “Longtermism” that has been brewing in Silicon Valley for several years?
More info →
Footsteps
2022
In Footsteps, Fiona Tan creates connections between personal stories and the world around us. The footage shows children at play and Dutch windmills, but above all people engaged in heavy physical labour in the countryside and in factories. In a fascinating juxtaposition, she combines these images with excerpts from letters she received from her father just after she moved to the Netherlands in the late 1980s. Through his education in Indonesia, Tan’s father knew a lot about the Netherlands without ever having visited the country. In the letters, he meanders seamlessly between personal news and world events, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing.
More info →
Ip Man 2
2010 · ★ 7.5
Having defeated the best fighters of the Imperial Japanese army in occupied Shanghai, Ip Man and his family settle in post-war Hong Kong. Struggling to make a living, Master Ip opens a kung fu school to bring his celebrated art of Wing Chun to the troubled youth of Hong Kong. His growing reputation soon brings challenges from powerful enemies, including pre-eminent Hung Gar master, Hung Quan.
More info →