
Filmmaker Gary Kaunonen of KCC-TV in International Falls just released a new documentary about a pivotal time in Northern Minnesota’s labor history. It’s called “Northern Minnesota’s Labor Wars.” The years 1916 and 1917 brought major labor uprisings in the mines of the Mesabi Iron Range and the lumber camps of the state’s far northern pine forests. These events not only shaped local history, but became vital turning points in the national and international labor movement.
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0.0A portrait of Chicagoland ICU nurse Jeanette Alvarez-Basem captured through the perspective of her son Ben Basem. Between her night shifts and Illinois Nurses Association union meetings, Jeanette navigates what it means to be a nurse and a human during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
7.5This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastover's refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.
7.5Brothers on the Line explores the extraordinary journey of the Reuther brothers – Walter, Roy, and Victor – union organizers whose unshakeable devotion led an army of workers into an epic human rights struggle.
0.0Freshwater is a documentary that dives into the cold waters of Lake Superior along Minnesota’s North Shore. Despite the fact that it contains ten percent of Earth’s freshwater, this massive force of nature remains largely unexplored. One group of people, however, is intimately aware of its power. From the surfers who catch its waves to the scientists who study its depths, learn why Lake Superior is a precious resource that should never be taken for granted.
4.0Humorist Roy Blount Jr. takes viewers on a journey down the Mississippi River, showcasing everything from areas with spectacularly beautiful scenery to ugly and dangerously polluted stretches bordered by industrial development.
0.0This award-winning documentary tells the true story of the final Confederate raid into what is now northeastern Oklahoma. The raid culminated in the capture of more than 300 Federal supply wagons at Cabin Creek in the Cherokee Nation. Now streaming on TUBI, PRIME VIDEO, TRUETVPLUS, and HISTORYFIX.
0.0In their own words, this is the story of six women from the South Wales valleys and how they helped sustain the bitter year-long miners' strike, changing their lives forever.
6.0The story of the railroad man in his role in keeping the trains moving on the rails.
0.0Allonias decides that enough is enough. He works 12-13 hours driving his taxi every day and still has no money left to pay for rent and clothes for their three children. He begins a battle against Sweden’s largest taxi company owned by billionaire Rolf Karlsson. It leads to Rolf Karlsson selling the entire empire for around 2-3 billion SEK. But for Allonias it has a high price…
9.0In 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.
5.7Documentary following dockers of Liverpool sacked in a labour dispute and their supporters’ group, Women of the Waterfront, as they receive support from around the world and seek solidarity at the TUC conference.
0.0Documentary marking the 30th anniversary of the 1984 miners' strike, one of the bitterest industrial disputes in British history, with stories from both sides of the conflict.
0.0Paul Wellstone was the charismatic Minnesota progressive who used grassroots organizing to get elected and give ordinary people a stake in government. His 3rd election campaign was cut short when his small plane crashed into the north woods of Minnesota just 11 days before the 2002 election. Wellstone! explores the origin of his politics, his controversial road to the United States Senate, his deep bond with his wife and 'co-senator' Sheila, and the legacy of a life of progressive populism.
0.0Pouvoir Oublier is a political documentary first constructed from the words of the speakers whose lives changed on the tragic day of May 10, 1972 in Sept-Îles. Their word will be juxtaposed with archival material from the events, some of which are unpublished, which will reflect the collective euphoria in which Sept-Îles and all of Quebec were then bathed.
0.0Kim, a Duluth, MN mother of three, is at the center of this compelling exploration of gender violence. As Kim and her daughters flee to a domestic violence shelter, we follow the harrowing struggles in a single-parenting survivor's quest to find work, housing and peace of mind. This multi-level narrative also examines the causes of domestic violence and solutions that have evolved to stop it.
0.0The year is 1970 and the disastrous Vietnam War keeps escalating. Protests are erupting all over U.S. campuses. But in Minneapolis, word that the national Red Barn Restaurant chain wants to erect a new fast-food franchise in old, venerable Dinkytown, the “war at home” takes a different turn. This stunning documentary chronicles the unprecedented 40-day, 40-night continuous Dinkytown “Occupation” to prevent construction of an unwanted hamburger joint. From film programmer-turned-filmmaker Al Milgrom, the story is recounted by seven participants whose varied reminiscences about defending the neighborhood becomes a microcosm of the memorable ‘70’s Generation. Music featured in the film by Bob Dylan, Willie Murphy.
0.0The inside story of Polmaise Colliery and the miners who were the first to walk out and the last to go back to work during the miners' strike.

