They Live is the campiest and most convincing critique of runaway future capitalism you’ll giggle your way through. Former pro wrestler Roddy Piper plays John Nada, a tough construction worker in the near future who discovers, with the help of a variant of 3-D glasses, that the invading aliens and the human elite capitalists are up to no good together. These creeps uses subliminal messages – Obey, Consume – to keep the working class in line. But John Nada literally sees through the creepy aliens in human disguise and he joins the revolution: “I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubble gum.” This is one of director John Carpenter’s most personal films, less flashy than Halloween, but closer to his other rebellious classics, Assault on Precinct 13 and Escape from. Introduction: Ken Livingstone (invite sent). Dir: John Carpenter/USA/1988/94 minutes
They Live
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Greece: The End of Austerity
Discussable documentaries do not have to be ripped from the headlines, but director Theopi Skarlato’s valiant attempt to chronicle the twenty-two day “miracle” campaign of the Syriza party’s victory that propelled Alexis Tsipras into the leadership as prime minister is so current that, as I type this, my iPhone news-feed is abuzz with the latest news about disagreements in the Syriza party’s leadership. Skarlato’s film documents the tremendous unease the Greeks feel about the Eurozone, particularly Germany’s leadership of same, and the conservative Greek government Syriza upset in January this year. From the very light (the Germans don’t like us because we have sunshine and are happy) to the tense (the threat of privatization of the docks that would lead to Chinese labor abuses), Skarlato tracks a country in turmoil. Her last interviewee says that she’s crying because “it’s time for dreams to take revenge,” a prophetic remark that will become the title of Skarlato’s next documentary.
Q&A Paul Mason and Syriza reps (confirmed). Director: Theopi Skarlatos/GREECE/2015/25 minutes (segment)
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The Divide
A true globalization film, this time, however, mostly from the bottom up, as director Katherine Round follows seven individuals, all of whom face the great “divide” – between those who are poor or are the working poor or the struggling middle class on one side and the plutocrats and one might add their governmental apologists – American presidents to be sure and off course The Thatcher – on the other side. On either side of “the divide” is one Wal-Mart worker who says she “might be living under a bridge next week” and the kind of rich person who can say to anyone, to eff you, mate, I’ve got all the money! We even meet a therapist who specializes in fragile Wall Street egos, the real “casualties of Wall Street,” he suggests because they work so hard and so uncertainly for their money. Very rarely does a film ask so many important contemporary questions that those in power ignore. Q&A Director Katherine Round (confirmed). Owen Jones (confirmed). Unison rep. New Economics foundation Dir: Katherine Round/ USA UK/2015/75 Minutes
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Compliance
Compliance dramatizes an event that will join the infamous Zimbardo and Milgrim experiments that indicated the tendency for people to obey orders even when they — it seems — must know they are immoral. But the film’s events really happened at a McDonald’s restaurant in Kentucky when a worker was accused of stealing and was then sexually harassed because her supervisor believed a phone caller was a policeman. Director Craig Zobel casts Dreama Walker as an innocent teenage worker harassed for hours at a fictitious fast food place called ChickWich. Audiences have squirmed and screamed during this intense drama of the risks associated with low-wage work. Introduction: FAST FOOD FORWARD reps. Dir: Craig Zobel/USA/2012/90 minutes
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MONSIEUR VERDOUX
In this brilliant black comedy we see Charlie Chaplin as we’ve rarely seen him before. Chaplin plays Henri Verdoux, a loyal bank teller who is laid off after thirty years of exemplary service. To continue to support his beloved wife and child, he turns to crime. He marries and murders a series of wealthy widows.
He is eventually caught and convicted. But before being led to his death, he dismisses his killing of a few, as no worse than the killing of many in war, for which others are honored. This philosophical film was originally received far better in Europe than in America — and has become something of a cult movie.
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TRASH DANCE
Trash Dance is a film that finds beauty and grace in a completely unexpected place – garbage trucks and in the unseen men and women who pick up our trash. American filmmaker, Andrew Garrison follows choreographer Allison Orr as she rides along with Austin sanitation workers on their daily routes to observe and later convince them to perform a most unlikely spectacle.
On an abandoned airport runway, two dozen trash collectors and their trucks deliver – for one night only – a stunningly beautiful and moving performance, in front of an audience of thousands, who are awed to discover how in the world a garbage truck can dance.
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STILL THE ENEMY WITHIN
Still The Enemy Within is a hotly anticipated union and crowd funded documentary due to be revealed later this year. In an exclusive London Labour Film Festival event, Producer Sinead Kirwan will discuss plans for the film and present some excerpts from the film, which goes to the heart of the Labour movement. In a film that tells the story of the strike from the frontline, this story examines and celebrates 30 years since the minors strike.
Image courtesy of reportdigital.co.uk/JohnSturrock
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LE CAPITAL
The financial thriller, Le Capital by the Greek-French film director Costa Gavras takes an unflinching look at the world of greed and high finance.
It follows the story of an executive Marc Tourneuil (Gad Elmaleh) who becomes the CEO of a large bank, only to upset the bank’s board of directors when he begins to take unilateral control of the bank.
We witness his ruthless ambition, power struggles, greed and deception. However, his brutal ascent is jeopardized by a hostile takeover attempt from a large American hedge fund led by Dittmar Rigule (Gabriel Byrne).
Le Capital is fast-paced, darkly comic and a suspenseful drama well worth the many accolades it has received.
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Pride
And speaking of The Thatcher … director Matthew Warchus returns to the never-ending-wrong of her reign – the attack on the National Union of Mineworkers. The other great film on this subject, The Battle of Orgreave (2001) is a documentary re-enactment staged by Jeremy Deller and filmed by Mike Figgis, but Pride is a dramatization from the heart, countering many of the official historical lies about the Miners’ Strike as it tells the story of a brave posse of gay and lesbian activists who organized their own support and defence of the miners by realising that The Thatcher was their common enemy and had to be fought. They organised a bus load of gays and lesbians, both brave and timid and set off for the Welsh village of Onllwyn in the Dulais Valley where local villagers led by a cast of stars like Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton among other excellent actors welcome them into their struggle. This is a stand up and cheer film not to be missed.Q&A Mike Jackson LGSM and Pride screenwriter. Dir: Matthew Warchus/UK France/2014/110 minutes
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BURN
Burn is a feature documentary about Detroit, told through the eyes of Detroit firefighters, who are charged with the thankless task of saving a city that many have written off as dead.
Burn follows the crew of Engine Company 50: one of the busiest firehouses in America. Located on Detroit’s blighted east side, E50 stands at ground zero of the city’s problems. Every day, these firefighters face injury, disablement, and death. But they come back, day after day, resolved to make a difference.
They’re certainly not here for the money: their starting salary is $30,000 and they haven’t seen a raise in 10 years. BURN tells the story of these exceptional individuals who, despite the challenges and dysfunction, believe in their city and are attempting to make a difference every day.
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Winter on Fire – Film review – Anna Burton
This film charts the Ukranian rebellion in the bitter winter of 2013/2014 against corrupt President Viktor Yanukovyvh, who was elected on a false promise to bring the country into the European Union, and instead cut a deal with Russian’s Vladimir Putin.
What initially starts out as a protest around EU membership turns into a violent fight for freedom and for Ukranian identity with an armed retaliation from the government’.
This heart-wrenching documentary reminds us of the importance of standing up for the values of democracy and freedom. Told over 93-days, this film of epic proportions is a documentary of violence and sadness but ultimately people power.
My heart is still aching from watching this film. To all of the heroes, thank you.
Available on Netflix
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Mining Poems or Odes
Friday 23 September 17:15
Robert Fullerton is a force. Welder turned poet or poet turned welder? It doesn’t much matter in this evocation of his life and philosophy, and the forces that helped make him a mesmerising artist.
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The Judgment
Film premiere Saturday 24 September 17:30 Q&A
The number of migrants/refugees being smuggled across our borders are now daily news. But how do these people make it to Europe through often hostile and unforgiving terrain? Whilst refugees stories are told, we know less about the people who actually do the smuggling.
The post The Judgment appeared first on London Labour Film Festival.
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Girlhood
Friday 23 September 20:30
A film to make you laugh, cry, and despair in equal measure, the latest masterpiece from Céline Sciamma (Tomboy) is one of the most powerful films in years on the subject of youth. Following Marieme, a young woman being denied educational opportunities by the French school system, she starts to embrace life
The post Girlhood appeared first on London Labour Film Festival.
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Labour films on the world screen – Tom Zaniello
As I think back on the last four years of the Labour Film Festivals in London and now Liverpool (North West), I am struck by the big generalizations we often turn to while discussing the labour and related films on offer. Globalization has probably the term been around the longest, denoting the rapid export of capitol around the world to take advantage of low-paying workers in the Third World as well as the changes in transportation (container ships), technology (digitalization) and control (deregulation and privatization).
Two of our films explore the drive for profits in this global market. ‘Daughters of a Lesser God’ explores the bangle makers of Hyderabad in Pakistan where the owners use the very homes of their workers as unsafe ‘factories’. In ‘The 33’ miners of gold and copper take incredible risks to penetrate the earth to unbelievable depths, but the owners do not take sufficient precautions for their health and safety.
Similarly our classic selection ‘Silkwood’ shows how vulnerable the workers are to nuclear contamination and company manipulation in a highly mechanized and organized industry. The question of the underclass or the unorganized or the precariat has arisen in past festival films as well. Two of our films dramatize these marginal workers and cast off’s of the working class in very different ways. In ‘I, Daniel Blake’ (screening at the North West labour Film Fest), Ken Loach explores a couple who have to fight every minute to maintain their dignity in the face of a bureaucracy that thinks nothing of assigning them a London hostel for the homeless 300 miles away. The young man in ‘7 Chinese Brothers’ pretends not to be overly concerned about his drift from one low-paying service job to the other but it is clear that there is a cost, again to his dignity not to mention his sheer survival. A third issue, on all of our minds is the migrant and refugee situation, now reaching worldwide dimensions. Only one of our films ‘The Judgment’ directly addresses this, but its intensity is daunting as we follow a Bulgarian ex-army man who used to patrol a border to keep Bulgarians fleeing the Soviet bloc in now finds himself desperate enough to help Syrians navigate a dangerous mountain pass to escape, most likely, to western Europe (eventually). A labour film festival wouldn’t be worth its digital projector if it didn’t look at the dignity and dedication of the working class. ‘The Operator’ portrays a woman handling an emergency call from a distraught woman caught with her child in building on fire. ‘The Operator’ handles this life and death situation with skill and empathy.
The Scots poet Robert Fullerton in the film ‘Mining Poems or Odes’ offers a clever analogy between welding and poem-making worth of our attention and respect.
Two of our films do not fit easily into any of the categories I have covered so far but both offer what might be called ‘the big (cinematic) picture’. ‘Trumbo’ a historical drama of politics during the right-wing American anti-communist hysteria of the 1940s and 1950s. A progressive screenwriter, very successful, who happens to be a Communist, incurs the wrath of the McCarthyites who come down on him relentlessly. It is not likely that anyone in the establishment can come down hard on Michael Moore, because he would turn them upside down first. ‘Where to Invade Next’ is his satire on what too many wayward and dogmatic Americans think they can do without e.g., a good health-care system, access to abortion, workers’ paid holidays, and female leadership at the top. (Well, we’ll see on November 8th if the USA joins the UK in this category! (Hilary). I hope to see you at many of these films and the Q&A sessions so that we can explore these crucial issues and developments in our world.
Tom Zaniello
Author ‘Union Maids, Reds & Riff Raff’ ‘The cinema of Globalization
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International Contest 2017
Our Labour Film Festivals celebrates national and international cinema with the twin objective of recognising and supporting new filmmakers and also improving knowledge, accessibility and understanding of social and labour issues amongst a wide and diverse audience.
The post International Contest 2017 appeared first on London Labour Film Festival.
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MODERN SLAVERY
Our retrospective on the films of Nick Broomfield is carefully selected around the theme of Modern Slavery. With special guests, this promises to be an eye-opening insight into the lives of hidden workers; past and present.
The post MODERN SLAVERY appeared first on London Labour Film Festival.
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AWARDS NIGHT
Join us for the awards ceremony where the winners of the contest will be announced. With special guests and a chance to preview the shortlisted films. This is not to be missed!
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THE PRINCE CHARLES
We are delighted to be returning to the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square for our fifth anniversary. It is after all the home of cult cinema! Join us for Ghosts, Metropolis and the Awards Night.
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VOTE IN THE PUBLIC AWARDS
As part of our LABOUR FILM FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL CONTEST, the public get to vote for their favorite SHORT (documentary and and fiction). They are all absolutely brilliant. The video with the largest number of ‘likes’ wins the public vote. It’s that simple. Go to our youtube page to watch the films and like your favorites HERE
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