Special encore presentation of this wonderful film at a naturally occurring retirement community (NORC).

Aging. People. Caring. Community.

Somewhere to Be - An eye-opening look behind the doors of a Greenwich Village senior center where any New Yorker sixty or older is welcome to come in and take a class, have some lunch, or make a friend. Veteran filmmaker Peter Odabashian's intimate camera style reveals that it’s possible to have a good life if you’re able to become part of a community. (2018, 1 hr 16 min)

Shorts (to precede):

Triangle Fire - Remembering the 1911 NYC factory fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company that led to major labor reforms. (2019, 4 min)

Plenty to Say: The Radical Murals of Mary Perry Stone - Mary Perry Stone, a former WPA sculptor, didn’t drink, smoke or lead a wild life. Her passion was being a social protest artist; it remained so throughout her life. When she was in her eighties and early nineties, Mary painted many murals depicting what she deemed the horrors of Capitalism. (2018, 9 min)

L'eau Est La Vie: The Fight At Standing Rock Continues In The Bayous of Louisiana- Energy Transfer Partners—the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock—is trying to extend that pipeline through the largest US wetland swamp in Louisiana, the Atchafalaya Basin.

L’Eau Est La Vie (Water is Life) Camp is fighting the pipeline despite facing state violence, police that are moonlighting for the pipeline and courts that are protecting corporate interests over public good. The fight for water and life continues! (2018, 10 min)

Reduced Price - Get tickets on Eventbrite here!

COME CELEBRATE THE 8TH ANNUAL WORKERS UNITE FILM FESTIVAL @PARK CHURCH CO-OP/GREENPOINT, WITH COOL SHORT FILMS, MULTI-MEDIA MUSIC, WITH TOP AREA BANDS AND GREAT REFRESHMENTS TOO!

COLOR COLLAGE - WITH TALENTED SHANE CONERTY, THE FANTASTIC SAINT MELA, AND SPECIAL GUESTS - SAY SHE SHE!  POWERFUL MUSIC FOR A POWERFUL NIGHT!

 https://soundcloud.com/saintmela/12-first-bloom

https://soundcloud.com/saintmela/09-jericho

ENCORE PRESENTATION OF THE COOLEST SHORT FILMS FROM THE FESTIVAL TO START, THEN MUSIC & FILM CLIPS ALL NIGHT:

AGAINST THE WIND - When the cab you drive decides it's time for you to retire - watch out! - Jamie is the world's greatest Uber driver, but his sense of self is challenged the week that self-driving cars are introduced as replacements. He must compete with the superior robots to save his job. (2018, USA)

'FINAL CUTZ' SEGMENTS - Great Clips from our favorite Anti-Corporate, Pro-Art Zombie Comedy Masterpiece.  When the Santa Fe University of Art and Design joined the alarming trend of art college closures, the students and faculty banded together to create a collective cinematic GFY to their corporate owners. The subversive “zom-com” social satire FINAL CUTZ finds the Marxist Chairman Bob rallying a beautifully diverse student body to save their Film School from both imminent closure and a zombie invasion! (2019, USA)

LAMBETH LIGHTS - When an out of work street person falls in love with the blind flower girl, in a modern day homage to Charlie Chaplin's 'City Lights,' things take an interesting turn. Shot in the streets where Chaplin grew up.  Starring BAFTA-listed Harry Macqueen ('Hinterland'), Imogen Morris and Bill Fellows ('Lady Macbeth'). (2017, U.K.)

DIVISION AVE - A few days before Passover, Fernanda, a young Mexican woman, is hired by a Brooklyn cleaning agency to work in the local Jewish Hasidic community. Despite a prolonged wait for her payment, Fernanda continues to faithfully show up for work each day at Nechama’s house. An unexpected connection between the two leads to a fight for justice against the cleaning agency at fault, bridging the gaps between their very different worlds.  The story behind Division Ave is inspired by true events happening to this day on the corner of Division & Marcy Ave in Brooklyn, NY.  (2018, USA)

TICK TOCK - After a corporate merger, Justine Jason is tasked with the systematic re-sizing of the newly formed company, but when she fires company veteran Mitchell Lamb he does the unthinkable and the outcome pushes her over a psychological tipping point.  (2018, USA)

L’EAU EST LA VIE: THE FIGHT AT STANDING ROCK CONTINUES IN THE BAYOUS OF LOUISIANA - The fight for water and life continues! Energy Transfer Partners—the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock—is trying to extend that pipeline through the largest US wetland swamp in Louisiana, the Atchafalaya Basin. (2018, USA)

RICE - Otherworldly documentation of rice milling process by agricultural workers in India who create geometry from an inanimate food staple. MESMERIZING, WORK AS ART (2017, India)

LISTEN TO MY SONG -  Esteban escaped poverty in the ghetto when he was thirteen, by running away from home and joining the FARC guerrilla movement in Colombia.  With the peace process underway Esteban’s life changes when he performs at a Peace Concert and is spotted by a famous Colombian music producer. (2018, Colombia)

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Salute to the IBEW Local 3 and their steadfast campaign to fight for labor rights in the NYC Electrical and Construction industry - Encore Presentation of Short Films from the IBEW Local 3 Apprentice Citizen Filmmaker Program. #CountMeIn Free screening for IBEW members!

Followed by:

Union Time: Fighting for Workers’ Rights - The successful 16-year fight to organize a union at the world's largest pork slaughterhouse, operated by Smithfield Foods in Tar Heel, NC.

There aren't many films about organized labor with happy endings! This happens to be one of them. The perseverance of a courageous group of workers, their guts and determination, form the core of this film. 'Union Time' contextualizes this victory--the largest labor victory in the US in the 21st Century---within a backdrop of fervent anti-unionism in the South, and focuses on the interconnections between the labor and the civil rights movements in the U.S. (2018, 1 hr 10 min)

Director Q&A after the film.

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Apprentice Electricians Citizen Films Showcase (IBEW Local 3) - For the 3rd year, apprentice electricians from SUNY Empire State’s Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies are empowered to share a snapshot of their working lives by creating their own short 5-6 min films. Using only a smartphone, they are taught how to shoot and edit video in order to depict a personal truth that might otherwise be framed incorrectly in the mainstream media, where stories about workers and their unions are often distorted and not truthful. Our goal is to create 100,000 Citizen Journalists from the labor union side to help balance the stories about workers and their unions. (2019, approx. 1.5 hrs)

Phansi: Down with Labour Brokers - A South African story of casual (i.e., contingent/precarious) workers, failed by an outdated industrial union movement. More than twenty years since the end of apartheid disparate groups of workers for whom very little has changed - failed by the state, betrayed by a corrupt and outdated traded union movement and subjugated by modern labour broking practices – find solidarity through the work of an advice office.

The documentary PHANSI follows the forms that this solidarity takes by tracing the worker and advice office interactions through the eyes of a young worker-turned film-maker. Ultimately PHANSI explores the question of what a future worker movement might look like – a question faced by precarious workers globally.

The film, shot over five years, has transformation as a central theme.

• Over the past 20 years capitalism has transformed so that bosses are selling labour to other bosses but worker protections in the form of industrial unions has not transformed in accordance.

• In South Africa the lack of transformation among the working classes(especially women) is captured through the eyes of Jacob, whose life is transformed from unfairly dismissed worker to budding young film-maker through his interactions with the Casual Workers Advice Office.

• Jacob and his own transformation is juxtaposed with that of the workers served by the CWAO and the transformation in the nascent worker movement in the process of finding its feet

PHANSI, overall, is a feel-good story of how this group of, predominantly women, workers stand up for their rights through self-education and solidarity. (2018, 1 hr 14 min)

Shorts (to precede):

Mancala - After a series of suspicious explosions at various bauxite mining operations around the world, the global industry comes to a standstill. (Screenplay Adaptation) (2018, 3 min)

Tantalum - A film against children's slavery in rare earth mines in the Republic of Congo. Two raw material traders have a negotiation of prices on the phone. Little by little they get disturbed in a strange and unexpected way ... (2018, 5 min)

Get tickets on Eventbrite here!

Note: This is a private event for UA Local 1 Plumbers and their guests.

Apprentice Plumbers Citizen Films Showcase (UA Local 1) - For the 3rd year, apprentice plumbers from SUNY Empire State’s Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies are empowered to share a snapshot of their working lives by creating their own short 5-6 min films. Using only a smartphone, they are taught how to shoot and edit video in order to depict a personal truth that might otherwise be framed incorrectly in the mainstream media. The goal is to have 100,000 citizen journalists from the labor movement tell our stories online everyday. (2019, approx. 1 hr 45 min)

Shorts (to precede):

Work - The camera captures the everydayness of labor while observing workers at the Hudson Yards development, the largest construction site currently in the United States. Hudson Yards, until recently, had been the site of large protests by the #CountMeIn movement, to protest the union bashing tactics of the wealthy Hudson Yards developer, Steve Ross and Related Properties. The constant pressure applied by local unions, especially Local 3 IBEW, has recently brought The Related Company back to the bargaining table. (2018, 13 min)

FREE EVENT - Register on Eventbrite here!

Note: This is a private event for UA Local 1 Plumbers and their guests.

5th Annual Activist Filmmakers Bootcamp! Third World Newsreel (TWN)! Seed & Spark! John Trigonis (formerly IndieGoGo) mentoring filmmakers! Lunch and refreshments.

Have you been an activist in your union, community, school or neighborhood? Been dyin' to get your ideas about a movement effort out to others on YouTube, Vimeo, or any of the other great multimedia sites online? We have the answer! The Activist Filmmaker Bootcamp can help move you from complete inexperience and fear of filming to making your first short documentary or narrative film. We'll have Bootcamp partner Third World Newsreel this year, who will talk about how to get your finished film distributed and how to make your production shine like a pro. Also attending will be Seed and Spark, the new filmmakers best friend for both crowdfunding, production and marketing know-how. John Trigonis, previously from Indiegogo - now consults with filmmakers independently and brings his years of experience to the Bootcamp as well.

But the most exciting part of each Bootcamp is the mentoring provided by emerging activist filmmakers to new attendees. This year we are so lucky to have:

Victorious De Costa - (Digging For Weldon Irvine - 2019)
Muta Ali - (Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn (coming to HBO)) - 2019)
Jordan Ehrlich - (The Cost Of Construction - 2018)
Joe Fusco - (Finish Line: The Rise and Demise of Off-Track Betting - 2017)
Pamela Sporn - (Detroit 48202: Conversations Along A Postal Route - 2018)
Ricky Causo - (Be Together, Just Not the Same - 2019)

These filmmakers have been where you are now, with an idea and not much else. They had lots of questions, some fear, but excitement and drive to take that next step to tell the story in their heads and get it up on a big screen and out over online distribution. They are here to answer questions, will show clips from the last films and demonstrate that once you start, get great advice and face down your fear - nothing can stop you from making that transition from activist to filmmaker. Join us! We even serve you lunch and refreshments to make for a wonderful and learning filled afternoon.

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Doors: 6:30pm. Play starts 7:00pm sharp.

Not to be missed! A concert staged reading of ‘The Green Book’ play, with playwright Calvin Alexander Ramsey, Director Vincent Scott, and Cast for Q&A afterwards.

THE GREEN BOOK is a play that sheds light on a time in America when Jim Crow and separate but equal was the law of the land. Travel and accommodations for African Americans was complex and full of uncertainties. Where a person or family could eat, sleep, buy gasoline or use restrooms was never without tension and, in some cases, was a life and death struggle. The play allows those who were born after the landmark civil rights bills were passed to look back upon a not so pleasant time in American History, but also to see a people who looked out for one another and provided a safe harbor in a swirling storm. A Jewish concentration camp survivor enters the play and the complexities of the times play out. (2018, 1 hr 20 min) Q&A after with Playwright, Director and Cast.

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This event celebrates The National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981, AFL-CIO). Come celebrate organized workers! Playwright Calvin Alexander Ramsey is a proud NWU member!

50 days: The 2018 Chicago Hotel Workers’ Strike - The story of how the Chicago hotel workers took on the City's premier hotels in their fight for year round health care benefits - from strike vote to settlement with the last major hotel chain. (2019, 16 min)

Councilwoman - A hotel housekeeper from the Dominican Republic, Carmen Castillo, has won a City Council seat in Providence, RI, taking her advocacy for low-income workers from the margins to the center. 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 in the City, and a tough re-election against two contenders—all of this while balancing the challenges of managing a full-time job cleaning hotel rooms, and a personal relationship. It’s a journey behind the scenes of politics after the victory. (2018, 57 min)

All In A Day’s Work - Through a series of comedic vignettes, this animated short shows the daily life of certain queer women, and how projection and prejudice makes people feel threatened by two queer bodies near each other. (2018, 10 min)

Plant the Seed - Black farmer and educator Leah Penniman and her journey to become the co-founder of Soul Fire Farm, a national leader in the food justice movement. Leah Penniman is the author of Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land. Part of the Resiliencia Documentary Series featuring music by Taína Asili. (2019, 11 min)

Resiliencia - In January 2018, just four months after Hurricane Maria landed in Puerto Rico, Taina Asili travelled to the island to document the devastation and interview women about their experiences during and post hurricane. The 11 minute music video documentary Resiliencia features the composition Taina Asili created as inspired by this journey, blended with an interview with Yasmin Hernandez, an artist and mother residing in Moca, Puerto Rico.

Resiliencia is a series of short documentaries inspired by stories of resilience Taína witnessed in interviews she conducted with women of color in various parts of the United states, Puerto Rico, and Canada over the course of several years. These stories, as well as her own, are born at the intersection of survival and reclamation of love and liberation. The Resiliencia documentary series accompanies an album by the same name which contains the compositions Taína Asili wrote to go along with each of the women’s stories. (2018, 11 min)

FREE EVENT - Register on Eventbrite here!

Note: This screening is primarily for PEF members and guests.

Final Cutz - Bob Hardlock, the hopeful chairman of a dying arts college, must fend off a hoard of hungry zombies after a fire releases buried nuclear waste onto the campus. (2019, 1 hr 26 min)

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Run the Meter - In a time when their livelihood is threatened by the proliferation of app cars roaming the streets, New York City’s yellow taxi drivers are being driven to do whatever it takes to cope with an unexpected turn after decades of riding their own American Dream. (2019, 38 min)

Shorts (to precede):

Looking Through the Bamboos - A quest to understand the source of inspiration and challenges faced by the tribal bamboo jewelry makes of Dangs district, India. (2018, 8 min, India)

Freedom to Drive - A short film about access to driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants. Centering the voices of directly-impacted leaders and advocates, it highlights how undocumented Californians have been criminalized for driving without licenses, and how the community organized to transform policy. The film uses the struggle for the right to mobility as a microcosm for the bigger movement for social justice.

"Freedom to Drive" highlights the intersection of immigration, labor, and mobility and how the ability to drive impacts the ability of undocumented people to work. But more importantly, the film highlights how a diverse group of immigrants organized to achieve significant policy victories and continue to push forward until our community attains the justice we deserve. (2019, 16 min)

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The David vs. Goliath story of the Uber drivers who took on America's most valuable startup.

UberLand - A first-of-its-kind feature length documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the labor issues surrounding Uber and the gig economy. It’s the story of a scandal-ridden startup that upended transportation, defied regulators, decimated the taxi industry and ended up cannibalizing its own drivers. The film follows San Francisco Uber drivers Eric, Robin, Antonio and Xavier as these independent contractors navigate the gig economy where many workers have meager earnings and few labor protections. “UberLand” features interviews with workers and Silicon Valley thought leaders and asks us to consider the true cost of the gig economy. (2018, 54 min)

Shorts (to precede):

Against the Wind - Jamie is the world's greatest Uber driver, but his sense of self is challenged the week that self-driving cars are introduced as replacements. He must compete with the superior robots to save his job. (2018, 13 min)

Autonomous Transit: Fight for Jobs and Safety - Autonomous vehicles are being tested nationwide, to incredibly dangerous results. For both jobs and livelihoods. Join TWU in the fight to maintain safe public transportation and good union jobs in the face of unproven robotic technology invading communities across the U.S.

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The Black Mountain - The Black Mountain is Delhi's largest landfill, dominating the lives of those who live off it and nearby, many forced to eke a living by collecting waste there. (2018, 15 min, India)

White Sauce Hot Sauce - An exploration of New York’s infamous immigrant halal carts culture, the people behind them, and the world of Arab culture packed into every gyro. (2017, 19 min)

RICE - Otherworldly documentation of rice milling process by agricultural workers in India who create geometry from an inanimate food staple. (2017, 32 min, India)

FREE EVENT - Register on Eventbrite here!

Sorry to Bother You - In an alternate reality of present-day Oakland, Calif., telemarketer Cassius Green finds himself in a macabre universe after he discovers a magical key that leads to material glory. As Green's career begins to take off, his friends and co-workers organize a protest against corporate oppression. Cassius soon falls under the spell of Steve Lift, a cocaine-snorting CEO who offers him a salary beyond his wildest dreams. (2018, 1 hr 51 min)

Shorts (to precede):

White Sauce Hot Sauce - An exploration of New York’s infamous immigrant halal carts culture, the people behind them, and the world of Arab culture packed into every gyro. (2017, 19 min)

Get tickets on Eventbrite here!

The Manhattan Front - This micro-budget period piece is staged as if in a dollhouse. Interweaving color live action with b&w (never-before-seen) archival material from 1915, the film tells the story of how the IWW interrupted the export of munitions during WW1.

Once upon a time, in 1915, a German saboteur arrived to Manhattan to interrupt the export of American munitions to Britain. He soon finds a collaborator in a wayward stevedore who unwittingly leads him to a group of labor anarchists. Sabotage and betrayal soon turn these bedfellows into agents of the other’s tragic end. In the spirit of a silent film from the era, this musical melodrama plays itself out through the interaction of archival images and the theatrical rendition of lives as they might have been lived on The Manhattan Front. (2018, 1 hr 26 min)

Followed by a Special Panel Discussion with representatives from SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America (WGA) East on how to keep your low budget indie film under union contract. Q&A with Director Cathy Lee Crane. Special Guests: Executive VP for SAG-AFTRA and President of NY SAG-AFTRA , Rebecca Damon; Director of Outreach at WGA East, Jenna Bond; Director of “The Manhattan Front”, Cathy Lee Crane; Assistant Director for Electronic Media Services at AFM, John K. Painting.

A shoe-string period movie was a challenge, and Cathy met it with a maestria we can only salute. Her subject is complex, an essential (tragic) episode in the history of the “American” left and a crucial moment in the progress of US women: set in Manhattan during WW1, she evokes both the work of women in the munitions industry, and the way the capitalist establishment used the war effort to destroy the most radical labor union your country has ever known, the Industrial Workers of the World, the “Wobblies”... This is a melodrama, with German spies hiding bombs in cigars, with German-American traitors. Cathy’s approach to this complex material is resolutely experimental, with brilliantly conceived visual metaphors and disconcerting juxtapositions. - Noël Burch, Co-Director of “The Forgotten Space” and “Red Hollywood”

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The Washing Society - An experimental narrative that brings us into New York City laundromats and the experiences of the people who work there. When you drop off a bag of dirty laundry, who's doing the washing and folding? “The Washing Society” brings us into New York City laundromats and the experiences of the people who work there. Collaborating together for the first time, filmmaker Lynne Sachs and playwright Lizzie Olesker observe the disappearing public space of the neighborhood laundromat and the continual, intimate labor that happens there. With a title inspired by the 1881 organization of African-American laundresses, “The Washing Society” investigates the intersection of history, underpaid work, immigration, and the sheer math of doing laundry. (2018, 44 min)

Shorts (to precede):

Division Ave - The fight for justice of a Latina cleaning lady in Hasidic Brooklyn.

A few days before Passover, Fernanda, a young Mexican woman, is hired by a Brooklyn cleaning agency to work in the local Jewish Hasidic community. Despite a prolonged wait for her payment, Fernanda continues to faithfully show up for work each day at Nechama’s house. An unexpected connection between the two leads to a fight for justice against the cleaning agency at fault, bridging the gaps between their very different worlds.

The story behind “Division Ave” is inspired by true events happening to this day on the corner of Division & Marcy Ave in Brooklyn, NY. This modern day slave labor started decades ago in the early 1990’s, in a different Williamsburg location. It is common practice for individuals and companies to frequent Division & Marcy early in the morning and hire a cleaning lady for the day. The women, mostly immigrants from Latin America and Eastern Europe, are often underpaid and/or sexually abused. (2018, 14 min)

All In A Day’s Work - Through a series of comedic vignettes, All in a Day’s Work shows the daily life of certain queer women, and how projection and prejudice makes people feel threatened by two queer bodies near each other. Two queer working class friends make a living in New York City by working in the lower rungs of America’s premier online retailer. After a long day at the office and the warehouse, they attend an after-work party, run an errand, end-up at a speed-dating event, and top off the day at their favorite bar. (2018, 10 min, Animated)

FREE EVENT - Register on Eventbrite here!

Undeterred - The film uses interviews, animations, shots of the desert and daily life in this working class community to tell the story of the build up of militarized enforcement along the US/ Mexico border. It explores how this build up has affected and changed life in the community, and how local residents have organized to push back against these changes.

Since NAFTA, 9/11 and the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations border residents have been on the front lines of a humanitarian crisis that has caused over 8,000 immigrant and refugee deaths. Undeterred is an intimate and unique portrait of how residents in a small rural community, caught in the cross hairs of global geo-political forces, have mobilized to respond to this crisis. The mission of the film is to inspire communities of conscience, especially other working class communities and be a reminder that even when dealing with overwhelming, appalling government policies, we are not powerless. More than anything, it is a love letter to the powerful border residents working, studying, living and organizing amidst the human tragedy of the border crisis. (2019, 1 hr 16 min)

Shorts (to precede):

Dad Milks Cows In Texas - In the mid 70s, Ramón Galván Palencia left his small town in Mexico for the United States. Over the next decade he crossed many of the borders separating the two countries in search of work. By the 1990s, he settled in Texas as a ranch hand on a dairy farm. “Dad Milks Cows in Texas” is a nonfiction portrait of a person that carries out the early morning work on a dairy farm. Together with cows and machinery, Ramón is a part of the process and routine of dairy work. He also happens to be the filmmaker's dad. (2018, 8 min)

L’eau Est La Vie: The Fight At Standing Rock Continues In the Bayous of Louisiana - Energy Transfer Partners—the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock—is trying to extend that pipeline through the largest US wetland swamp in Louisiana, the Atchafalaya Basin.

L’Eau Est La Vie (Water is Life) Camp is fighting the pipeline despite facing state violence, police that are moonlighting for the pipeline and courts that are protecting corporate interests over public good. The fight for water and life continues! (2018, 10 min)

Get tickets on Eventbrite here!

Meet the millennials fighting back against unpaid work.

Call Me Intern - This doc follows three interns-turned-activists who refuse to accept the idea that young people should have to work for free to kick-start their careers. Their stories challenge youth stereotypes and help give a voice to the growing movement for intern rights across the world.

Unemployed and frustrated, David and Nathalie set out to land an internship so they can examine the system from the inside in an act of guerilla film-making. After David accepts an internship at the United Nations, they move into a small blue tent on the Geneva lakefront and begin documenting his unpaid intern experience. Their action sparks a global press storm, challenging their roles as filmmakers.

Meanwhile, Kyle interns for fortune-500 company Warner Music while living in a homeless shelter in New York City. Marisa works as an unpaid intern for Obama’s re-election campaign, while fending off unwanted sexual harassment from her supervisors.

Each of these interns faces a choice: accept the system the way it is or put their careers on the line to speak out against it. Their individual actions help give visibility and strength to a growing intern movement. Their journeys reveal the motivations and pressures that lead so many millennials to work for free while pop-culture extracts and testimonies from academics, politicians and employers give us a sense of how wide the internship phenomenon has spread. (1 hr 7 min, 2019, Switzerland, U.S. +)

Shorts (to precede):

Lambeth Lights - An homage to Charlie Chaplin's 'City Lights'. Shot in the streets where he grew up. Starring BAFTA-listed Harry Macqueen ('Hinterland'), Imogen Morris and Bill Fellows ('Lady Macbeth'). (2017, 24 min, U.K.)

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Madrigal for A Living Poet - The life and personal philosophy of Tico, a gravedigger and writer from Brazil. A song to life, an aesthetic homage, a filmic reverie about work and life, memory, and the need to reinvent every day life and seek lost senses. (2018, 1 hr 15 min, Brazil)

FREE EVENT - Register on Eventbrite here!

Buenos Aires, The City At Sleep - Every night, hundreds of people change their routine to do night work and fulfill the tasks necessary for the City of Buenos Aires to operate in the daytime. This documentary shows the life story of these heroes of the night: how important their jobs are and how it is to live upside down from the rest of the people. (2019, 50m, Argentina)

Shorts (to precede):

March - Amidst Argentina’s economic crisis, the workers of a restaurant resume their activities after an unsuccessful strike in demand for a salary increase. (2018, 12 min, Argentina)

Don’t Give Up Your Voice! - This film is, at first glance, about Argentina but it is also about the United States. 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 coops, street protests, theater and music. The film offers instructive parallels with the situation in the U.S., while illustrating the power of collective action. (2018, 40 min, Argentina)

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Trouble Finds You - An intimate portrait of a young man swept up in New York’s biggest untold criminal justice story. An excellent student halfway in and out of gang life in the Bronx, Kraig Lewis was in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was caught in a bust conducted by 700 FBI, NYPD and ICE officials and prosecuted by Preet Bharara.

Lewis, along with 119 others, were prosecuted under a law originally designed to target mobs but are now increasingly used against low-income neighborhoods of color in New York.

“Trouble Finds You” explores not only race, the effects of incarceration on Lewis’s life and family after jail, but also how this little-known conspiracy law called the RICO Act can derail promising futures, wrecking families and communities. (2019, 31 min)

Followed by:

Listen to My Song - Esteban escaped poverty in the ghetto when he was thirteen, by running away from home and joining the FARC guerrilla movement in Colombia.  With the peace process underway Esteban’s life changes when he performs at a Peace Concert and is spotted by a famous Colombian music producer. (2018, 48 min, Colombia)

Shorts (to precede):

Boricua: Shouting On Sunset Park - Dennis Flores and El Grito de Sunset Park are voices of the resistance in the Latin New York, cop-watching and marching against police brutality. (2017, 19 min)

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The Mayor’s Race - A mixed-race child, Marvin grew up with his single mother in Bristol's ghettos in the UK with prostitution, violence and poverty as a daily occurrence. Ever since, Marvin had the desire to go against the injustices he experienced and decides to run for mayor. Despite his charisma and intellect, his biggest battle is believing anyone will take this black guy from the ghetto seriously.

In a tight race, he must accept his loss in front of rolling cameras. Though feeling personally ashamed, losing for him has a greater significance as the the city has a history of treating its black immigrants like no other.

Bristol was part of the slave trade, was struck by a civil rights movement in the 1960's inspired by Martin Luther King and had the black youth revolting in the 1980's, which caused a nationwide riot. Today it is the increasing fear of muslims that shatters the city.

Despite his doubts, Marvin decides to run again. More professional, stronger and with the vital support of the Muslim-Somali community. Will he manage to break the circle of history and become the first mayor of African decent of a city in Europe? (2018, 1 hr 20 min, U.K.)

Shorts (to precede):

Triangle Fire - Remembering the 1911 NYC factory fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company that led to major labor reforms. (2019, 4 min)

Putting Out Fires: The School Bus Crisis of Richmond County - TWU Local 239 in Augusta, GA is fighting back against environmental hazards that are plaguing school bus drivers, mechanics, monitors and school children. (2019, 12 min)

FREE EVENT - Register on Eventbrite here!

Not everyone who died for their country, had to die for their country.

Who Killed Lt. Van Dorn? - An intimate portrait of a deadly 2014 Navy helicopter crash that exposes how military, political and business leaders have failed our men and women in uniform. (2018, 1 hr 20 min)

“Who Killed Lt. Van Dorn?” tells a story of how failure to take action on known safety problems led to unnecessary deaths. If the lives of these sailors and Marines were lost on a factory floor, there would have been outrage, and likely reform. But a distant public assumes these men died defending the country, not training in a chopper long past its prime – one that has killed 128 service members in non-combat missions.

At the heart of the story are people close to Van Dorn and his helicopter’s tragic history: Nicole Van Dorn is the determined widow who has gathered emails and maintenance records showing her late husband’s deep misgivings about the chopper. She demands accountability and leads a local reporter through the material in order to find the truth about her husband’s death. Dylan Boone, who survived the wreck, wrestles with PTSD. His survivor’s guilt is exacerbated by the fact that there’s no sense of valor when your peers die in a training exercise. Chris Humme, the last mechanic to touch the ill-fated Sea Dragon, is a gun-toting patriot who says he sports more red, white and blue than is probably healthy. But he’s kicked out of his beloved Navy after blowing the whistle on persistent, shoddy maintenance practices.

As the film progresses “Who Killed Lt. Van Dorn?” lays bare the way the U.S. military, Congress, and the mega corporations that serve them have entwined their interests, even at the expense of human lives and the nation’s defense. They opt for new gear, even if programs run billions over budget or never manage to work, while those working on aging equipment squabble for the scraps of the military’s largesse and desperately attempt to keep up appearances. A mix of cinema vérité, a vivid archive, and rich investigative reporting, “Who Killed Lt. Van Dorn?” reveals how the nation has failed the very people who felt compelled to serve us.

“Riveting” - San Francisco Chronicle

"An outrage-­inducing... blistering exposé." - The Mercury News

“A compelling story of how the dysfunction and greed of the military­industrial complex put US military personnel at risk, often with fatal consequences ... Every concerned citizen and every member of Congress should see this film. Lives depend on it.” - The Nation magazine

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The Nuns, The Priests, and The Bombs - Nuclear disarmament activists, including Catholic nuns and priests, challenge the security and legality of America’s nuclear weapons when they break into two top-secret facilities: The “Fort Knox of Uranium” and a U.S. Navy Trident nuclear submarine base. Are they criminals or prophets sending a wake-up call to the world? (2017, 1 hr 27 min)

Q&A with Director after film, plus guests from Ploughshares Anti-Nuke movement discuss recent civil disobedience actions.

Shorts (to precede):

That One-Tenth Of Good - A man loses his home, his family, and his job due to extreme medical bills and finds refuge in the most unlikely place. "One-Tenth" is both a cautionary tale of America's inadequate healthcare system, and a story of optimism and love. Inspired by the growing homeless conditions in the San Francisco Bay Area, this short illustrates that things can always be worse. (2018, 7 min)

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Tito and The Birds - In a society plagued (literally) by mass hysteria, young Tito invents a machine to help humans communicate with birds, believing he can execute a plan to save the city and his ailing mother. But first he must face up to a rich, reactionary TV personality capitalizing on the chaos. (2018, 1 hr 13 min, Brazil)

Note: This film will be dubbed in English.

Shorts (to precede):

Flip the Switch - From villages that live in darkness at night to villages that have just discovered how solar power can change their lives, Flip the Switch tells the story of Solar Mamas, women from developing countries who have been trained as solar engineers. Starting in India and making their way to Central America and Africa, this film shows how Hogan Lovells, one of the largest law firms in the world, and Barefoot College, the world’s largest NGO, came together to empower women and girls as change agents. Their shared journey illustrates that a global effort to inspire similar committed partnerships is needed to make measurable progress toward the UN SDGs -- one woman at a time, one village at a time. (2018, 10 min, India/Africa/S. America)

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A Zom-Com of Academic Proportions.

Final Cutz - When the Santa Fe University of Art and Design joined the alarming trend of art college closures, the students and faculty banded together to create a collective cinematic catharsis. The subversive “zom-com” social satire FINAL CUTZ finds the Marxist Chairman Bob rallying a beautifully diverse student body to save their Film School from both imminent closure and a zombie invasion! (2019, 1 hr 26 min)

CONTEST FOR BEST ANTI-CORPORATE ZOMBIE COSTUME! PRIZES! AWARDS. Q&A with Director and actors after the film.

Shorts (to precede):

Against the Wind - Jamie is the world's greatest Uber driver, but his sense of self is challenged the week that self-driving cars are introduced as replacements. He must compete with the superior robots to save his job. (2018, 13 min)

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Dear Walmart - Walmart workers organize and fight for a historic pay raise. This heartfelt 5 year plus project follows the OUR Walmart workers’ alliance as they seek to organize the exploited workers of the largest retailer in the world. (2019, 59 min)

"Some workers love retail. All they want is for retail to love them back - in the form of a living wage, affordable healthcare, a safe workplace, and underlying it all, respect. OURWalmart (OUR, Organization United for Respect) was begun in 2011 by a few brave workers at the world’s largest private employer, many of whose two million-strong “family” live near the poverty line. Alone at first, and ultimately with the help of established union veterans, they used word of mouth to gain hundreds of members and bring them together in training sessions that double as morale boosters, all done in secret. Dear Walmart (not entirely ironically titled) is an ultimately upbeat story of their personal empowerment and their first victory, a $9/hour minimum wage for some 500,000 people. But this win was followed by the retaliatory closure of five Walmart stores, a huge loss of jobs." (Thanks to Judy Bloch)

NYC Premiere! Q&A with the directors, Kiley Kraskoukas and Michael Blain, to follow.

Shorts (to precede):

Triangle Fire - Remembering the 1911 NYC factory fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company that led to major labor reforms. (2019, 4 min)

NYSNA 2018 Year In Review - The NY Nurses Association accomplished many heroic feats at the bedside and beyond. (2018, 5 min)

Birth Of A Union - Despite being full time employees of the State of North Carolina, wages of many workers have been so low, that they have qualified for Federal food stamps.

The film chronicles the historic and heroic effort to organize low wage workers in North Carolina, where it is actually illegal for any State agency to agree to a Union contract.

While workers in North Carolina’s massive textile mills were finally able to secure a collective bargaining agreement with their employer to improve their wages and working conditions — though it took them 70 years to achieve this — public sector workers are absolutely forbidden by State law from obtaining such an agreement, a decision that was ratified by the US Supreme Court on the basis of the "States rights" 10th Amendment of the Federal Constitution.

Helping to give leadership to these workers has been a dynamic African-American union organizer working through one of the most progressive unions in the country. (2012, 20 min)

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The chemistry of a cover-up.

The Devil We Know - Unraveling one of the biggest environmental scandals of our time, a group of citizens in West Virginia take on a powerful corporation after they discover it has knowingly been dumping a toxic chemical - now found in the blood of 99.7% of Americans - into the drinking water supply.

When Wilbur Tennant noticed the cows on his family farm were mysteriously dying, he suspected it might be tied to the adjacent “non-hazardous” land fill operated by DuPont. When he filmed what was happening on the farm and contacted a lawyer, the toxic legacy of C8 – DuPont’s Teflon chemical – was discovered.

Then one autumn day in 2000, local schoolteacher Joe Kiger opened his mail and found a letter in his water bill informing him that C8 was in his drinking water, but safe for consumption. Most people would throw the letter away – and most did – but Joe Kiger is different.

The trail of deception he and his wife Darlene uncovered made the sleepy town of Parkersburg the epicenter of one of the largest class action law-suits in the history of environmental law.

Internal documents and secret in-house studies reveal a disturbing truth: DuPont had knowingly been pumping a poisonous chemical into the air and public water supply of more than 70,000 people for decades.

DuPont factory workers who handled C8 on a daily basis - people like Ken Wamsley and Sue Bailey - confront the company that exposed them to C8 and its negative health effects. (2018, 1 hr 35 min)

Shorts (to precede):

NYSNA 2018 Year In Review - The NY Nurses Association accomplished many heroic feats at the bedside and beyond. (2018, 5 min)

L’Eau Est La Vie: The Fight At Standing Rock Continues In the Bayous of Louisiana - The fight for water and life continues! Energy Transfer Partners—the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock—is trying to extend that pipeline through the largest US wetland swamp in Louisiana, the Atchafalaya Basin. (2018, 10 min)

The Reason We’re Still Here - Residents of Youngstown, Ohio, take on the fracking companies that have poisoned their drinking water and destroyed their economy. Over the last decade, the Rust Belt city has become increasingly divided between those in support of job development and those who seek to protect access to clean drinking water. The Reason We're Still Here provides a unique window into lives of union members, community organizers and residents on each of these conflicting sides, raising the question of whether economic livelihood must exist in opposition to a healthy and safe environment. (2018, 15 min)

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Sorry to Bother You - In an alternate reality of present-day Oakland, Calif., telemarketer Cassius Green finds himself in a macabre universe after he discovers a magical key that leads to material glory. As Green's career begins to take off, his friends and co-workers organize a protest against corporate oppression. Cassius soon falls under the spell of Steve Lift, a cocaine-snorting CEO who offers him a salary beyond his wildest dreams. (2018, 1 hr 51 min)

Shorts (to precede):

Tick Tock - Post merger Justine Jason is tasked with the systematic resizing of the newly formed company, but when she fires company veteran Mitchell Lamb he does the unthinkable and the outcome pushes her over a psychological tipping point. (2018, 15 min)

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Councilwoman - Politicians aren’t often full-time hotel housekeepers, grandmothers, union members and immigrants working service jobs. But Carmen Castillo changes that when she wins a seat on the City Council in Providence, Rhode Island. Carmen Castillo is a UNITE HERE member, and Dominican City Councilwoman, who maintains her job cleaning hotel rooms, as she takes on her new role in politics. 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 in the City, and a tough re-election against two contenders—all of this while balancing the challenges of managing a full-time job cleaning hotel rooms, and a personal relationship. Her union sisters and brothers are with her every step of the way. It’s a journey behind the scenes of politics after the victory. (2018, 57 min)

Shorts (to precede):

50 days: The 2018 Chicago Hotel Workers’ Strike - The story of how the Chicago hotel workers took on the City's premier hotels in their fight for year round health care benefits - from strike vote to settlement with the last major hotel chain. (2019, 16 min)

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