Movies: Labor

Lin, a migrant female worker from Cambodia, and Yeon-hee, a Korean, are friends who work together at a factory at night. One day, the two will go to the sea together for the weekend. However, the factory manager only forces Lin to work overtime on th...

The story of two young women who go to the city to work in a dress factory, and who share a room to ease their expenses and their loneliness. The film shows the currents that brought them together and the facets of their natures that first made them ...

This 1996 documentary takes a nostalgic ride through history to present the experiences of Black sleeping-car porters who worked on Canada's railways from the early 1900s through the 1960s. There was a strong sense of pride among these men and they w...

It's not her turn, but she's pregnant....

Made in L.A. follows the remarkable story of three Latina immigrants working in Los Angeles garment sweatshops as they embark on a three-year odyssey to win basic labor protections from a mega-trendy clothing retailer. In intimate verité style, Made ...

Through first person narration, Tari reveals personal stories related to her decision to work in Taiwan, her strained family relationships, the risks involved in working abroad and the traps she has fallen into....

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...

The lowest paid teachers in the nation are in the middle of a statewide walkout in Oklahoma. From start to finish, Walkout follows the teachers as they get organized and demand raises from their state legislature. From crowded classrooms to a packed ...

The story of the children who work 12-14 hour days in the fields without the protection of child labor laws. These children are not toiling in the fields in some far away land. They are working in America....

A desperate, but not very bright, young man tries to find where he parked his car in a massive underground parking garage in Cannes, France when his pregnant girlfriend goes into labor....

This short documentary is a tribute to the unknown father. Emerging filmmaker Danic Champoux poses the question "How many men still have to uproot themselves and leave their families to get work?" as he sets out to search for his own father. He wonde...

Documentary about the poor circumstances in the process of manufacturing iPhones - about mineworkers in Rwanda, illegal workers in Shenzhen, and repair-techs in Hamburg....

This extraordinary documentary is an unflinching record of the workers’ struggle during Japan’s economic rebirth in the 1980s, centered on Tokyo’s Sanya “yoseba”—a slum community dating from the 19th century where day laborers lived in terrible condi...

An experimental documentary exploring the turn-of-century lynching of union organizer Frank Little in Butte, Montana....

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, girls aged 12 to 16 began working at Pyeonghwa Market. Running sewing machines, they also study the Labor Standards Act under the tutelage of Jeon Taeil. On September 9, 1977, they were imprisoned fighting against t...

Migrating is seldom an easy solution. It is rather a journey, that begins with a journey. After more than eight years of campaigning, the immigrant cleaners outsourced at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London continue to demand ...

Dioni, like every day, is late for work. His boss already warned him that if this happened again, he would leave him on the street. Someone is going to have to run if he wants to get paid this month......

In Footsteps, Fiona Tan creates connections between personal stories and the world around us. The footage shows children at play and Dutch windmills, but above all people engaged in heavy physical labour in the countryside and in factories. In a fasc...

An Indian immigrant awakens inside a confined metal box, with the walls slowly closing in... unless he can do the work assigned to him....

Documents the conflicts and tensions that arise between highland migrants and Mosetenes, members of an indigenous community in the Bolivian Amazon. It focuses particularly on a system of debt peonage known locally as ‘habilito’. This system is used t...