Labor Day
What would the end of summer be without Labor Day? So here we are again, happy for the long weekend, and for the reminder to turn our attention at least once a year to, well, the working class. Which if the U.S. is still not ready to celebrate May Day (by the way marking a specifically American historical event), we will take. So of course, while at OVID we try and pay attention all year round, we’re happy to present this year’s selection of films for Labor Day! They include a wide-range of films, documentary and narrative feature films, on U.S. issues and global ones, on wider social questions and movements, and also some intense and moving personal stories.
And you don’t have to watch them all this weekend – add the ones that interest you to your watchlist and you can pay attention whenever you like as well!
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Miners Shot Down
Directed by Rehad Desai • Documentary • 2014 • 86 minutes
In August 2012, mine workers in one of South Africa's biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days into the strike, the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress it, killing 34 and injuring many more. Th...
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Outcry and Whisper
Directed by WEN Hai and ZENG Jinyan • Documentary • 2020 • 100 minutes
A performance artist approaches a dais with a quiet formality, then proceeds to slowly and deliberately slice a series of cuts into her face with a razor. A doctoral student/filmmaker, under house arrest and constant surveill...
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We the Workers
Directed by Wen Hai • Documentary • 2017 • 174 minutes
China’s economic miracle has been built on cheap labor. And now, that labor is starting to fight back. Filmed in the southeastern part of the country, WE THE WORKERS is a vérité documentary that closely follows people organizing workers and ...
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As Goes Janesville
Directed by Brad Lichtenstein • Documentary • 2012 • 87 minutes
As Goes Janesville catapults viewers to the front lines of a national debate over the fate of the American economy and the survival of the middle class – a debate that turned into a pitched battle in the normally tranquil state of W...
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Chez Jolie Coiffure
Directed by Rosine Mbakam • Documentary • 2018 • 70 minutes
Sabine attaches a hair weave and gets to work. Her hands move quickly and precisely, as she tightly braids the hair in front of the sign in her salon promising African, European, and American-style coiffure. Sabine is a larger than-life...
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Another World is Possible
Directed by Mark Dworkin and Melissa Young • Documentary • 2002 • 24 minutes
What if 51,000 people from 131 countries put their heads together to discuss what is wrong with the world and how to work together to change it? In early 2002, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, public officials, representatives ...
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Be Seeing You
Directed by Mario Marret, Chris Marker • Documentary • 1968 • 39 minutes
From 1967 to 1976 Chris Marker was a member of SLON (the 'Company for the Launching of New Works'), a group based on the idea that cinema should not be thought of solely in terms of commerce. 1967 was also the year an impor...
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Finally Got the News
Directed by Stewart Bird, Rene Lichtman and Peter Gessner • Documentary • 1970 • 55 minutes
FINALLY GOT THE NEWS is a forceful, unique documentary that reveals the activities of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers inside and outside the auto factories of Detroit. Through interviews with th...
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I Am Somebody
Directed by Madeline Anderson • Documentary • 1970 • 30 minutes
In 1969, black female hospital workers in Charleston, South Carolina went on strike for union recognition and a wage increase, only to find themselves in a confrontation with the state government and the National Guard. Featuring An...
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Housemaids
Directed by Gabriel Mascaro • Documentary • 2012 • 76 minutes
Housemaids are an integral part of the household in Brazil, and participate in the day-to-day life of the family. The employment of housemaids is almost obligatory among the middle and upper classes of the country. The vast majority o...
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Last Grave at Dimbaza
Directed by Chris Curling and Pascoe Macfarlane • Documentary • 1974 • 55 minutes
In 1969, a small group of South African exiles and British film students formed Morena Films in London to produce films about apartheid. By 1974, they produced one of the first, and certainly the most influential, ...
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Dying for Gold
Directed by Catherine Meyburgh & Richard Pakleppa • Documentary • 2019 • 98 minutes
In the biggest class action law suit the country had ever seen, South Africa’s largest gold mining companies were accused of knowingly exposing miners to deadly dust and disease.
Now, harrowing underground foota...
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Bitter Money
Directed by Wang Bing • Documentary • 2016 • 152 minutes
The people in Wang Bing's BITTER MONEY lie in filthy, cramped apartments, stare at their phones for far too long, spend time on their balconies overlooking drab streets in which all the buildings look the same, and work long hours for litt...
