Free Virtual Film Festival Screenings All Memorial Day Weekend - May 22nd to May 25th
/While we’re unable to meet in person this May due to COVID-19, you can still catch a preview of some of the Workers Unite Film Festival Season 9 films (in-person NYC festival postponed to Sept 25th, 2020).
Full Schedule Below:
Friday, May 22nd (12:00 p.m. and all day/night)
Program 1:
Hope Served Fresh: Recovery Friendly Employment - A pizzeria owner in Oneonta New York decides to create a "sober and recovery friendly" workplace, starting a trend that reaches the upper levels over New York State Government. (15 min, Jessica Vecchione) (Trailer)
Gone Postal - Jay Galione, son of a postal worker, investigates the dark corners of the U.S. Postal Service. Across the country, brave employees stand up to injustice on the job and fight to Save the People’s Post Office. A moving indictment of the toxic culture and push to downsize, this eye-opening documentary allows viewers to hear from experts and advocates including Ralph Nader and Richard Wolff, and directly from the selfless and courageous people hidden behind the scenes, long suffering and ignored. (1 hr 33 min, Director: Jay Galione) (Trailer)
Live Panel Q&A with Special Guests - Sat, May 23rd at 12:00 p.m. (EST), streamed from Zoom to Facebook at www.facebook.com/gonepostalfilm. Here, Jay and others will answer your questions and talk about the current threat to our Postal Service and what we can do about it. To participate, watch the film on May 22nd and send your questions or comments to usmaildoc@gmail.com.
Program 2:
Sophia Dawson: Purpose - The story of renowned Brooklyn visual artist and activist Sophia Dawson, an intimate and powerful portrait of a brilliant young woman determined to use her creative gifts to enlighten and empower her community. (15 min, Director: Justin M. Thomas) (Trailer)
Ni Uno Más / Not One More Death - Hundreds of NYC immigrant construction workers took to the streets on Workers’ Memorial Day (Día de Trabajador Caído) to commemorate their fallen co-workers and draw attention to unsafe working conditions for immigrant laborers. Learn more about the NICE (New Immigrant Community Empowerment) team and the work they're doing during COVID-19: https://www.nynice.org/about (6 min, Director: Meerkat Media Collective)
Feet On the Street: Dirty Patti at the L.A. Teacher's Strike - She's political, she's a bit inappropriate and she's a puppet! Dirty Patti, a fixture of the Los Angeles art scene, traverses to a teachers' strike where she interviews those fighting on the front lines lines for the betterment of the teachers and students of Los Angeles Unified School District. (5 min, Directors: Crispin Rosenkranz, Christina Elaine Vasquez)
I, Candy - Filmmaker Candy Kugel deconstructs a drawing she did when she was 6 years old to explore her life in animation. (22 min, Director: Candy Kugel) (Trailer)
Saturday, May 23rd (12:00 p.m. and all day/night)
Program 3:
Town of Widows - U.S. Premiere. In a factory town both sustained and poisoned by big industry, a growing group of widows, workers and family members fight for justice in a system stacked against injured workers. Nicknamed “The Electric City”, Peterborough, Ontario, was home to a General Electric plant for over a century. Over time, employees of the plant and their families noticed more and more GE workers dying from cancer. Now, they're fighting for compensation and finding a "conspiracy of silence". (1 hr 26 min, Directors: Natasha Luckhardt and Rob Viscardis) (Trailer)
Q&A Panel: The following day, on Sunday (5/24) at 1:00pm EST, the Town of Widows team will hold a Q&A on Facebook Live at facebook.com/townofwidows. Zoom: (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7046954606, Non-Zoom users can also join, Meeting ID: 704 695 4606)
Program 4:
Rethabile's Story - In the garment factories of Maseru, Lesotho (South Africa), the workers make clothes to be sold in the U.S. What is day-to-day life like in the factories? Let ex-factory worker Rethabile take you to the places she used to work, meet her friends, and share her experience in the Decent Work Regulation project. (25 min, Director: Darren Hutchinson) (Trailer)
Under the Stack - Documents the consequences of living and working under a smokestack, and celebrates citizen efforts to challenge the unsafe working conditions and toxic emissions of ASARCO, the American Smelting and Refining Company. ASARCO declared bankruptcy in order to shed its debts and its responsibilities to clean up 95 sites in the U.S. alone. Today ASARCO is profitable and workers continue to seek answers to the question: What has made our community sick? (1 hr 12 min, Directors: Anne Fischel and Lin Nelson)
Sunday, May 24th (12:00 p.m. and all day/night)
Program 5:
Some Luck - Stuck between shifts at his thankless pizza delivery job and crashing on his mom’s couch, Johnny searches for an escape. (9 min, Director: Joshua Hanesack) (Trailer)
At A Stranger's Table - With tensions high on immigration control, the time is right to introduce the North Carolina east coast migrant field worker to the United States consumer of produce. This documentary introduces two types of hired 'migrant’ workers who pick the US produce: the H-2A visa worker in North Carolina “legally” and the migrant worker who is "undocumented". We follow both groups of people and explore the complex state of their lives, concluding with conversations between the migrant farm workers and consumers during a dinner. (1 hr 28 min, Directors: Scott Temple and Sally Jacobs) (Trailer)
Program 6:
In the Basement There's Some Money - Three cousins of varying socioeconomic status struggle to divvy up the money their grandfather left for them. (17 min, Director: Gianluca Randazzo) (Trailer)
Represente: The Future Is Ours - Argentina's social movements generate viable alternatives of economies and human relations within a crisis-ridden, exploitative, neo-liberal and neo-colonial economic system. (1 hr, Directors: Dario Farcy, Bettina Müller, Joana Splieth, Tina Wilke) (Trailer)
Sea Is Shaking - The city of Murmansk and its citizens who dedicate their lives to hard work in the Barents Sea. (46 min, Director: Nikita Tuzov, Russian with English Subtitles) (Trailer)
Monday, May 25th (12:00 p.m. and all day/night)
Program 7:
Filipino migrant domestic worker, Biverly, gives an interview at the “Care & Share Homely Shelter”, on May, 16th 2019 - Photo: Ivan Abreu/Rights Exposure
COVER/AGE - Confronting the healthcare exclusion of elderly undocumented immigrants in California, two immigrant leaders (one a caregiver, the other a policy advocate) champion the movement to expand healthcare coverage for everyone in the Golden State. (25 min, Director: Set Hernandez Rongkilyo) (Clip)
The Price of Justice - Follows four women as they try to pursue cases against their former employers. Taken into Kafkaesque circumstances, these workers spend their days in waiting rooms, long queues and tribunals in a frustrating attempt to get access to justice. This documentary is a collaboration with Rights Exposure for Hong Kong Federation of Domestic Workers and has the support of the International Labour Organisation. (55 min, Director: Ivan Abreu) (Trailer)
Program 8:
Produced by the Institute on Community Integration, University of Minnesota. More Info: z.umn.edu/invaluable
Keepers of the House - Eight housekeepers from hospitals in Durham, North Carolina tell moving and compassionate stories about their special human relationships with patients and the ways in which they believe their work contributes to healing. (14 min, Director: Rhonda Klevansky) (Trailer)
Invaluable: The Unrecognized Profession of Direct Support - The under-appreciated and under-funded work of direct support professionals (DSPs), the people who support individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in living full lives as members of their communities. (44 min, Director: Jerry Smith) (Trailer) (z.umn.edu/invaluable)
How It Works:
On Friday, May 22nd, starting at 12:00 p.m. (EST), go to the festival homepage and simply play the videos that are embedded on the top of our page. We will switch to the next day's virtual programming block by 12:00 p.m. (EST) the following day, giving you nearly a full 24 hours to check out each set of films. There is no charge for watching or login requirements. Both programs are available all day in two separate windows.
We will continue to host more films from our upcoming season in the following months if this is an overall success and feedback is positive. Official submissions are still being accepted, and filmmakers will be contacted about our interest to feature films of theirs online at future dates.