I've Got to Live...

Wastelands(es)

The eldest member of a rural community of grape growers refuses to sell his land to a greedy real estate company. When he seems cornered by the dirty tactics of a corrupt businessman, he must decide whether to give up everything he owns, or take control of the situation.

Matewan(en)

Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan, a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan's vested interests so that justice and workers' rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.

Tragic Jungle(pt)

In a company trading maté, workers are treated as slaves. Some of them try to escape, but those who are caught suffer severe punishments.

Esta tierra es mía(es)

The life of the cotton workers in the Chaco and its struggle for wages.

A Whole Life Ahead(it)

25-year-old philosophy major Marta faces the ugly truth for many young Italians — a complete lack of career opportunities. While babysitting for single mother Sonia, she starts to work as a telemarketer, experiencing first-hand the fanatical and exploitative rat-race culture pushed on employees while quickly rising through the ranks of the company. Around her revolve people like delusional supervisor Daniela, her womanizing boss Claudio, fragile coworker Lucio "2", and well-meaning but inconsistent union rep Giorgio.

Die Mutigen 56 - Deutschlands längster Streik(de)

Emma Freese is desperate when her husband Alfred falls ill at the Howaldtswerke in Kiel. How is the family supposed to get by without their wages? The war has scarred this generation, but now things are supposed to be looking up. The workers want their fair share and are fighting for an income that also gives them room to live. In October 1956, 34,000 metalworkers in the shipyards and factories of Schleswig-Holstein walk off the job to fight for justice and their dignity. This strike is still regarded as the toughest and longest in Germany. Employers and politicians stand in the strikers' way.

Until Tomorrow, Comrades(pt)

Portugal, 1944. In a country oppressed by a brutal dictatorship, there are those who resist and mobilize the people to fight for bread and freedom, even if it cost them prison, torture or their lives.

3.87(it)

During 2004 alone, 1400 people in Italy died at their workplace, 3.87 per day. Andrea is one of them.

Ashes(en)

Christian, a young man from the city, travels to a town in Zaragoza, Spain of his recently-deceased father to throw his ashes and give a final farewell. He arrives to find the town abandoned years ago by everyone, leaving their houses to slowly crumble into memory, in search of better opportunities. Yet, one resident remains. An eccentric and wild man who has chosen to live alone in nature, to protect the remains of the village from the pillagers that often drive by in search of valuable artefacts. Their encounter will force Christian to confront his father's identity and perhaps finally understand why his father was the way he was.

Slipway(en)

A young man receiving medical treatment in the hospital reminisces about fishing in the small dory his grandfather owned.

Golgotha(en)

Six widows demand compensation for the death of their husbands, who were killed during a worker's strike. The women are arrested and taken to the police quarters, where the authorities try to make them retract their statements, but it turns out they're not so easily intimidated.

Poor-Land(pl)

A documentary about unemployed workers in Walbrzych, Poland.

Triangle: Remembering the Fire(en)

On March 25, 1911, a catastrophic fire broke out at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City. Trapped inside the upper floors of a ten-story building, 146 workers - mostly young immigrant women and teenage girls - were burned alive or forced to jump to their deaths to escape an inferno that consumed the factory in just 18 minutes. It was the worst disaster at a workplace in New York State until 9/11. The tragedy changed the course of history, paving the way for government to represent working people, not just business, for the first time, and helped an emerging American middle class to live the American Dream.

Un homme de Parole(fr)

A Permanent Part-Timer in Distress(ja)

The director, twenty-three-year-old Iwabuchi Hiroki, is a permanent part-timer who on weekdays does menial work at a factory for 1,250 yen an hour, and on weekends takes on casual temporary work in Tokyo, a city he is fascinated with. He joins a demonstration demanding rights for permanent part-timers, and is featured on TV as "a poor, unhappy temporary worker." Despite having made his own choice to live as a permanent part-timer, he says that "the days feel like drowning in shallow water." But during the diary-like documentation of his life, something changes...

Love, Women & Flowers(es)

Women workers stand up to the toxic flower industry in Colombia.

Migrant Dreams(en)

When Umi and Dwipa left Indonesia to work in an Ontario greenhouse as part of Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program, they hoped the jobs would provide the opportunity and income for a better life. They didn't expect that fixers and false promises would lead to deception and exploitation. Sadly, their story is not uncommon. Min Sook Lee continues to speak truth to power with her commitment to providing a voice to the silenced, fulfilling documentary's capacity as a powerful tool for social change.

I Am a Sex Worker(en)

Two foreigners meet in Barcelona and become friends after discovering that they both work in the same business: sex work. Their conversations offer an insider’s view into the differences between women and men in the sex industry.

La Brigada – A Mural for the Unidad Popular in Dresden(de)

During the 16th Workers' Festival in Dresden in 1976, a student group of Chilean emigrants paints a mural symbolically depicting the activity of the Unidad Popular during Salvador Allende's reign. Festival guests comment on this work. Music by Chilean music group Jaspampa, formed in Leipzig in 1972.

Conversations with Turiansky(es)

Biographical portrait of the labor movement and left wing movement in Uruguay, "Conversations with Turiansky" combines two stories. The first portrays the son of immigrants, the engineer passionate about the mystery of electricity, the man in love, the movie buff. The other places the protagonist in his time: union struggles, the advance of authoritarianism, prison and the challenges of the present. In both are present the lucidity, commitment, discreet tenderness and humor of Wladimir Turiansky.