Justice in the Coalfields

Centralia: Pennsylvania's Lost Town(en)

A small town is overcome by a massive underground coal fire in 1962. As a result hundreds of residents had to be relocated.

Shattered Glass: A WNBPA Story(en)

Shattered Glass: A WNBPA Story dives deep into the lives beyond the court of the next generation of basketball luminaries, Jonquel Jones, Nneka Ogwumike, and Breanna Stewart, as well as WNBA legend, Sheryl Swoopes. From intense off-season routines to the intricacies of family dynamics to navigating the politics of women's sports, this documentary offers viewers a rare, all-encompassing look at the athletes as holistic individuals.

Mother Jones, America's Most Dangerous Woman(en)

Documentary overview of the life and causes of "Mother" Jones.

A Century of Struggle(en)

A Century of Struggle chronicles the hundred-year history of the NZ Seamen’s Union from its formation in 1879. Using original film and archive footage, it examines the working lives of seamen and the battles fought by their union from the sailing ships of colonial days to the modern turbine-powered container vessels. Because the Seamen’s Union was frequently at the forefront of working-class struggle in New Zealand, its story involves most of the crucial issues and events in the history of the union movement generally, including the great maritime strikes of 1890 and 1913 and the waterfront dispute of 1951.

Bitva pod zemí(cs)

Miners Shot Down(en)

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.

Thatcher vs The Miners: The Battle for Britain(en)

On the 5th of March 1985, a crowd gathered in a South Yorkshire pit village to watch a sight none of them had seen in a year. The villagers, many of them in tears, cheered and clapped as the men of Grimethorpe Colliery marched back to work accompanied by the village’s world-famous brass band. The miners and their families had endured months of hardship. It had all been for nothing. The miners had lost the strike called on March 6th 1984. They would lose a lot more in the years to come. But was it a good thing for the country that the miners lost their last battle?

In Memory of the Land and People(en)

“…It is a film that tells in hurried film sequences and a resonant musical score juxtaposing the sublime, funereal despair of Bartok agains tthe gut-bare tones of folk music. Gates has through his filming technique and meticulously selected mining sites, captured all the outrage and sorrow and indignity to the land and its people that strip mining represents. The film is one that all Americans should see, for it shows extremely well the price we have to pay for strip mined coal.” - Dale A. Burk, The Montana “Missoulian”

Mémoires d'un condamné(fr)

Broken Rainbow(en)

Documentary chronicling the government relocation of 10,000 Navajo Indians in Arizona.

These were the reasons(en)

This film takes us into the harsh realm of BC's early coal mines, canneries, and lumber camps; where primitve conditions and speed-ups often cost lives. Then, the film moves through the unemployed' struggles of the '30s, post WWII equity campaigns, and into more recent public sector strikes over union rights.

American Dream(en)

When workers at the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota are asked to take a substantial pay cut in a highly profitable year, the local labor union decides to go on strike and fight for a wage they believe is fair. But as the work stoppage drags on and the strikers face losing everything, friends become enemies, families are divided and the very future of this typical mid American town is threatened.

Cocalero(es)

A documentary centered on the union formed by Bolivian farmers in response to their government's (which was urged by the U.S.) effort eradicate coca crops, and the man who would come to represent them, Evo Morales.

Iron and Steel Supply of the World(en)

Time-travel to a 1940s classroom with this exemplary educational film.

Solidarność: How Solidarity Changed Europe(de)

Gdańsk, Poland, September 1980. Lech Wałęsa and other Lenin shipyard workers found Solidarność (Solidarity), the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtain. The long and hard battle to bring down communist dictatorship has begun.

Země se otvírá(cs)

The Miners' Strike and Me(en)

Documentary 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.

Harlan County U.S.A.(en)

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastovers 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.

Contract(fi)

Documentary about the nurses' strike in Finland on autumn 2007.

In Spite of Ourselves(es)

An explosion in one of the largest chemical plants in Europe, the Petrochemical complex in Tarragona, triggers the labour struggle of a group of workers who demand what is fair for everyone.