Yama – Attack to Attack

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 conditions while they sought work.

1985-01-25 | ja

Children of Labor: A Finnish-American History

How Finnish immigrants came into contact — and conflict — with industrial America. Three generations of Finnish-Americans recount how they coped with harsh realities by creating their own institutions: churches, temperance halls, socialist halls, and cooperatives.

1977-09-24 | en

Blueberry Waggle Dance

It's a warm spring night, and the bee cowboys of Prince Edward Island begin rounding up their hives.

2024-01-01 | en

Spellbound

This documentary follows 8 teens and pre-teens as they work their way toward the finals of the Scripps Howard national spelling bee championship in Washington D.C.

2002-03-14 | en

Burning Out

Burning Out is literally a drama about life and death. For two years, the Belgian director Jérôme le Maire followed the members of a surgical unit in one of the biggest hospitals in Paris. Constantly under severe stress, understaffed and subject to severe budget cuts, employees fight each other for resources. Meanwhile the management imposes ever more stringent efficiency and profitability targets. All over Europe burnout has reached epidemic proportions among employees in the public and private sectors. Will we end up killing ourselves? Or will we be able to find meaning and joy at work?

2016-11-18 | fr

Confessions of a CEO: My Life in an Out-of-Balance World

A bare-knuckled critique of corporate America told through the powerful true story of a toxic CEO who evolves from a profits-over-people, philandering executive to an unorthodox leader, populist messenger, and mentor to American influencers. It’s a story of growth, redemption and the impact of self-awareness on leadership and life.

2025-01-10 | en

The Handy Man

J.T. Baily will demonstrate how to repair a broken window. Broken windows are never very picturesque, and at this time of the year extra ventilation is not at all welcome. After this demonstration, however, every viewer should be able to look forward to window breakages as a fine opportunity for a show of skill.

1936-11-28 | en

Harvest of Loneliness

Shedding light on the current debate over immigration reform and the use of "guest workers" in American agriculture, this historical documentary, "Harvest Of Loneliness: The Bracero Program," examines what was known as the Bracero Program-a system put in place from 1942 to 1964 to recruit Mexican farm laborers for temporary work in the United States.

2010-10-20 | en

Miners Shot Down

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.

2014-05-01 | en

The Botany of Desire

Featuring Michael Pollan and based on his best-selling book, this special takes viewers on an exploration of the human relationship with the plant world — seen from the plants' point of view. Narrated by Frances McDormand, the program shows how four familiar species — the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato — evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication.

2009-10-28 | en

The Curious Case of Curt Flood

Inside the life of former baseball star Curt Flood whose fight against MLB's 'Reserve Clause' led to reform, but destroyed his career.

2011-07-13 | en

Jobs for All!

A highly choreographed review of the Industrial Age as we know it today – an intense and playful roller coaster ride that demands the viewer confronts how “work works.” Culled entirely from archival footage, the film unfolds in the filmmakers’ trademark, and humorously critical, cinematic voices.

2021-04-29 | sv

Harlan County U.S.A.

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

1977-01-23 | en

Attention danger travail

With the energy of the dying, those in power apply themselves to reasserting the value of work – with force, if need be. But more and more workers have understood that, to truly value their work, they have to do without it. They also have to get rid of the society of consumption that goes along with it. It may not be easy, but it is certainly amusing. We present a panorama of a mass desertion destined to spread.

2003-10-08 | fr

Youth (Spring)

This film was shot between 2014 and 2019 in the town of Zhili, a district of Huzhou City in Zhejiang province, China. Zhili is home to over 18,000 privately-run workshops producing children's clothes, mostly for the domestic market, but some also for export. The workshops employ around 300,000 migrant workers, chiefly from the rural provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan and Jiangsu.

2023-11-10 | zh

American Dream

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.

1990-10-06 | en

The Hasty Man Drinks His Tea with a Fork

A blend of drama and documentary, this film follows several people caught up in the turmoil of the modern world. The drama centres on a woman who has burned out and who holds up her own despair – and her attempts to rebuild her life – as a mirror to the rest of us. With a blend of gravity and humour, Sylvie Groulx's film shows the absurdity of a society dedicated to the cult of speed at all costs.

2003-01-01 | en

My Father

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 wonders about these men who are labourers, itinerants, and mostly nameless, but who are all exemplary providers. But at what cost? This film was produced as part of the Libres Courts collection of first-time documentary shorts.

2000-01-01 | en

A magyar alma

2014-01-01 | hu

The Braceros, An Oregon Experience

World War II created a huge demand for American farm products. But the war also caused vast numbers of farm workers to abandon the fields, either to join the military or to seek work in the cities. The solution would be a unique contract-worker agreement between the United States and Mexico -- The Bracero Program.

2007-04-07 | en