Labor Studies

Labor Studies

LEVIATHAN
LEVIATHAN
A 10th anniversary re-release of one of the most acclaimed documentaries of the 21st century, Leviathan is a thrilling, immersive documentary that takes you deep inside the dangerous world of commercial fishing. Set aboard a hulking fishing vessel as it navigates the treacherous waves off the New England coast - the very waters that once inspired "Moby Dick" - it captures the harsh, unforgiving world of the fishermen in starkly haunting, yet beautiful detail.
DEVIL PUT THE COAL IN THE GROUND
DEVIL PUT THE COAL IN THE GROUND
A unique oral history of West Virginia, and meditation on the suffering and devastation brought on by the coal industry and its decline - a cautionary tale of unfettered corporate power and an elegy to a vanishing Appalachia. Consciously eschewing exploitative filmmaking around the opioid epidemic or poverty, the film focuses on its people – all linked by the love of their home state and desire to stay put against all odds.
DE HUMANI CORPORIS FABRICA
DE HUMANI CORPORIS FABRICA
Five centuries ago, anatomist André Vésale opened up the human body to science for the first time in history. Today, De Humani Corporis Fabrica opens the human body to the cinema. In their thrilling new work of nonfiction exploration, Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Leviathan) burrow deeper than ever, using microscopic cameras and specially designed recording devices to survey the wondrous landscape of the human body. 
RESOURCES
RESOURCES
The meat industry is booming in Canada, where huge factories use standardized production methods to convert vast herds of livestock into meat. They hire asylum seekers, mainly from Latin America, so they can continue to produce at competitive rates. This observational film splits its focus between the workers and the animals, considering the living conditions of both, while providing a subtle yet critical look at a world driven by capitalism and the links in the chain that make this possible.
ASCENSION
ASCENSION
2022 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature. Nominated for Best Documentary by the Director's Guild, Producer's Guild, Independent Spirit Awards, and Gotham Awards, and winner of Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, Ascension explores the paradoxical pursuit of wealth and progress in China. This extraordinary documentary follows factory workers, middle class consumers and elites as they chase the elusive "Chinese Dream.”
1970
1970
1970. Striking workers in communist Poland demonstrate against price increases. In the dignitaries’ offices, tension and violent repression grow as the revolt intensifies. Using stop motion animation to bring the telephone recordings to life, Tomasz Wolski composes a highly precise and prodigious film that looks at labor and rebellion, but told from the perspective of the oppressors.
HER SOCIALIST SMILE
HER SOCIALIST SMILE
Though her life generated voluminous literature, most people ignore the fact that iconic deaf-blind author Helen Keller (1880–1968) was one of the most passionate socialist advocates of her time. Continuing his work of patient and insightful political filmmaking, director John Gianvito (Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind) resurrects Keller's radical views, which have been largely suppressed or sanitized over the years. 
FRUITS OF LABOR
FRUITS OF LABOR
A Mexican-American teenage farmworker dreams of graduating high school, when ICE raids in her community threaten to separate her family and force her to become her family's breadwinner. Fruits of Labor is a lyrical, coming-of-age documentary feature about adolescence, nature and how ancestors paved the way. Director Emily Cohen Ibáñez documents life guided by the spirit world through her hardships and joys in modern America.
THE GRAND BIZARRE
THE GRAND BIZARRE
Filmed over five years, in fifteen countries, director Jodie Mack places textiles against surprising backgrounds, editing the imagery to a homemade pop soundtrack. Following components,systems, and samples in a collage of textiles, tourism, language, and music, the film investigates recurring motifs and how their metamorphoses function within a global economy.
EVERY PULSE OF THE HEART IS WORK
EVERY PULSE OF THE HEART IS WORK
Filmed across India, the central theme of Paweł Wojtasik’s (End of Life) stunning new documentary is work. With a patient, unobtrusive approach, it consists of transcendent portraits of a broad spectrum of laborers, from a surgeon to a priest to a masseur, forming a composite vision of society, where each has a place in the tangled web of human endeavor.
A BREAD FACTORY
A BREAD FACTORY
Hailed as "a major new work by a singular American artist" by The New York Times, A Bread Factory is the latest feature from acclaimed filmmaker Patrick Wang (The Grief of Others, In The Family), a wondrous, inventive and outright dazzling film about a community arts center, aptly named the Bread Factory, in a small upstate town that appears to be at the center of some major social and cultural changes.
BISBEE '17
BISBEE '17
Named the best film of the year by The New York Times, Robert Greene’s extraordinary Bisbee ‘17 radically combines collaborative documentary, western, and musical elements to recreate a mass deportation of striking miners (mostly Mexican and Eastern European immigrants) that occurred in 1917. Greene confronts issues of immigration, unionization and environmental damage while linking a tragic moment in American history to our own turbulent times.
WALDEN
WALDEN
Deep inside a pristine forest, we hear the sudden sound of a chainsaw felling a fir tree. So begins this breathtakingly photographed, puzzle-like documentary which follows the mysterious journey of the tree’s lumber entirely through thirteen 360° panning shots; a wide-angle picture of the role nature plays in a world defined by globalization.
A WHALE OF A TALE
A WHALE OF A TALE
In 2010, the sleepy fishing town of Taiji found itself in the world’s spotlight when The Cove, a documentary denouncing its whaling traditions, won an Academy Award. Fascinating and thought-provoking, A Whale of Tale revisits this story and discovers a different perspective as it unearths a deep divide in eastern and western thought about nature, wildlife and cultural sensitivity.
ERIE
ERIE
In this landmark documentary, celebrated filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson presents a series of single-take, black-and-white sequences filmed in and around Lake Erie to draw a profound connection between Black migration from the South to the North and the economic hardships currently facing working class communities.
ARABY
ARABY
A fable-like road movie, Araby is a beautifully written and photographed story about a young boy who discovers an old notebook and is soon swept up in the writer's wanderings, adventures and loves; a twenty-year journey across the Brazilian countryside in search of a better life.
GRAY HOUSE
GRAY HOUSE
From a women's correctional facility in the Pacific Northwest to a North Dakota oil field, Gray House deftly blends vérité footage, stunning landscapes, interviews with workers, and fictional elements – some of which involve actors like Denis Lavant (Holy Motors, Beau Travail) – for a prescient vision of modern-day America.
CANNERS
CANNERS
Manfred Kirchheimer, director of award-winning films such as Stations of the Elevated and Tall: The American Skyscraper and Louis Sullivan, whom the New York Times recently called "an indispensable New York filmmaker," takes to the streets in an ode to the men and women who earn their daily bread by diligently collecting New York City’s bottles and cans.
SHE STARTED IT
SHE STARTED IT
An essential documentary on women tech entrepreneurs, She Started It upends the popular perception of a male-dominated Silicon Valley. Featuring interviews with leading female CEO's and entrepreneurs, it follows four passionate, trailblazing young women as they strive to launch their companies in the ruthlessly competitive world of high tech start-ups.
IN EXILE
IN EXILE
Forced to flee his country after filming politically sensitive events such as the Saffron Revolution, a Myanmar filmmaker finds himself a refugee amongst refugees in Thailand, where he discovers the plight of fellow migrants working under slavery-like conditions.
THE HUMAN SURGE
THE HUMAN SURGE
One of the year’s most bracingly original debuts, The Human Surge is a global journey that jumps from Argentina to the Philippines to Mozambique, a road movie that fuses fiction and documentary for a portrait of today’s youth at a time of economic uncertainty and illusory hyper-connection.
BEHEMOTH
BEHEMOTH
Beginning with a mining explosion in Mongolia and ending in a ghost city west of Beijing, political documentarian Zhao Liang's visionary new film details the social and ecological devastation behind an economic miracle that may yet prove illusory.
DEAD SLOW AHEAD
DEAD SLOW AHEAD
An enormous shipping freighter drifts endlessly across the Atlantic Ocean; its' crew toiling tirelessly below. At times resembling a dystopian science-fiction film, this is trenchant commentary on global trade, labor and capitalism.
BOONE
BOONE
The final year in the life of a small farm in Southern Oregon is vividly captured in this study of a way of life quickly disappearing due to strict government regulations and competition from corporate farms.
THE PRISON IN TWELVE LANDSCAPES
THE PRISON IN TWELVE LANDSCAPES
In this remarkable documentary, filmmaker Brett Story excavates the often unseen links and connections that prisons – and our system of mass incarceration – have on communities and industries all around us. Widely acclaimed, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes is an essential documentary, a portrait of our criminal justice system in which we never see a penitentiary.
PORTRAIT OF A GARDEN
PORTRAIT OF A GARDEN
Capturing one year in the life of a historic garden, this magnificent documentary is an ode to nature and the delicate, interdependent relationship between man and the natural world.
STARTING POINT
STARTING POINT
A pilot program in which female prisoners work at a nursing home for the elderly and disabled while serving out their sentences.
MINERITA
MINERITA
An acclaimed, award winning documentary about the women of a remote mining town in Bolivia where life above ground is just as dangerous as below.
GRUMANT: ISLAND OF COMMUNISM
GRUMANT: ISLAND OF COMMUNISM
A fascinating documentary about the men and women who travel to work at an old Soviet settlement in the arctic, where not much has changed in nearly 100 years.
DAUGHTERS OF ANATOLIA
DAUGHTERS OF ANATOLIA
A singular portrait of a nomadic goat herding family whose livelihood and traditions are being threatened by an increasingly urbanized world.
FISH TAIL
FISH TAIL
The impact of global industrial overfishing on a small community of fishermen in the Azores is explored in this intimate, beautiful documentary.