2021 DC Labor FilmFest: The New Deal For Artists & We Made Matzah Balls for the Revolution
Our guests for the May 27 (7p ET) LABOR GOES TO THE MOVIES podcast Movie Club discussion will be Lincoln Cushing & Harvey Smith. Archivist and historian Lincoln Cushing is the author of All Of Us Or None: Social Justice Posters of the San Francisco Bay Area and Agitate! Educate! Organize! - American Labor Posters; Harvey Smith is the author of Berkeley and the New Deal. Join us this Thursday, May 27 at 7p ET; RSVP here. PLUS: Check out We Made Matzah Balls for the Revolution, now playing in the Jewish Film Festival. Longtime local labor leader and organizer Carl Goldman, who was part of this 1970's collective, will be at tomorrow night's Labor Goes to the Movies discussion. NOTE: All 2021 DC Labor FilmFest movies are available now in the AFI Silver's Virtual Screening Room: CLICK HERE.
Chris Garlock, Director, DC Labor FilmFest THE NEW DEAL FOR ARTISTS Available May 21–June 6 – Tickets $12 With the failure of President Hoover's policies at the end of 1929, marked by the stock market crash on October 24 and the ensuing Great Depression, the decade that began with the dream of endless progress and prosperity came to an end with millions unemployed. American industrial workers who had lost their jobs lined up in the streets for a bowl of soup and a hunk of bread. Depression, new technology and foreclosure by the banks drove more than half of American farmers to bankruptcy. By 1932 something had to change, and the newly elected President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, created the New Deal to put America back to work. The Works Project Administration (WPA) and Farm Security Administration (FSA) were formed to carry out this plan. However, with the arrival of Martin Dies' House Un-American Activities Committee, theatre actors, directors, writers and painters soon found themselves the target of Republicans' aggressive anti-communist agendas, and the WPA was under full-blown political attack. Narrated by Orson Welles, this remastered classic also features interviews and commentary by John Houseman, Studs Terkel, Howard Da Silva, Arthur Rothstein, Joseph Losey, Norman Lloyd and more. (Note adapted from Corinth Films.) DIR/SCR/PROD Wieland Schulz-Keil. U.S., 1979, color/b&w, 90 min. NOT RATED WE MADE MATZAH BALLS FOR THE REVOLUTION A documentary film about a group of young people who started a worker self-managed Kosher restaurant in Silver Spring, MD in the 1970s. In addition to serving food the restaurant held public programs about and supported labor struggles such as the United Farmworkers Union grape and lettuce boycotts and the Washington Post Pressman's strike. Available for streaming as part of the Washington Jewish Film Festival. For tickets click here. NASRIN Available May 20–June 6 – Tickets $5 NASRIN was secretly filmed in Iran by women and men who risked arrest to make it. It is an immersive portrait of the world's most honored human rights activist and political prisoner, attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, and of Iran's remarkably resilient women's rights movement. In the courts and on the streets, Sotoudeh has long fought for the rights of women, children, religious minorities, journalists, artists and those facing the death penalty. In the midst of filming, she was arrested in June of 2018 for representing women who were protesting Iran's mandatory hijab law. She was sentenced to 38 years in prison, plus 148 lashes. Featuring acclaimed filmmaker Jafar Panahi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi and journalist Ann Curry, the film is narrated by Academy Award® winner Olivia Colman. (Note adapted from Kino Lorber.) DIR/SCR/PROD Jeff Kaufman; PROD Marcia Ross. U.S., 2020, color, 92 min. In English and Persian with English subtitles. NOT RATED 
70th Anniversary THE WHISTLE AT EATON FALLS aka RICHER THAN THE EARTH Available May 18–June 6 – Tickets $5 Following its world premiere at this year's TCM Classic Film Festival, we're excited to present Flicker Alley's new restoration of Robert Siodmak's rarely seen labor-ific 1951 drama THE WHISTLE AT EATON FALLS. When young union leader Brad Adams (Lloyd Bridges) is reluctantly appointed president of a failing plastics manufacturing plant in a small New Hampshire town, he finds himself with the unenviable task of cutting costs, bringing in new labor-saving machinery and laying off employees, all while simultaneously calming labor relations. Meanwhile, the plant's recently widowed owner Mrs. Doubleday (Dorothy Gish in a rare sound-era performance) is forced to consider selling the company. The stellar supporting cast also includes Ernest Borgnine (in his debut film role), Anne Francis, Arthur O'Connell, Anne Seymour, Carleton Carpenter, Parker Fennelly, Russell Hardie, Doro Merande and James Westerfield. DIR Robert Siodmak; SCR Lemist Esler, Virginia Shaler; PROD Louis De Rochemont. U.S., 1951, b&w, 96 min. NOT RATED THE CHAMBERMAID [LA CAMARISTA] Available May 13–June 6 – Tickets $5 In her multi-award-winning feature debut, theater director Lila Avilés turns the monotonous workday of Eve (Gabriela Cartol), a chambermaid at a high-end Mexico City hotel, into a beautifully observed film rich with detail. Set entirely in an alienating hotel environment with extended scenes taking place in the guest rooms, hallways and cleaning facilities, this minimalist-yet-sumptuous movie brings to the fore Eve's hopes, dreams and desires. As with Alfonso Cuarón's ROMA, which is set in the same city, THE CHAMBERMAID salutes the invisible women caretakers who are the hardworking backbone of society. Winner, Best First Feature, 2019 Ariel Awards; Winner, Best First Work, 2019 Havana Film Festival; Winner, Jury Prize, 2018 Marrakech International Film Festival; Winner, Best Mexican Feature Film, 2018 Morelia International Film Festival; Winner, Cine Latino Award, 2018 Palm Springs International Film Festival; Winner, Best New Director, 2018 Portland International Film Festival; Winner, Golden Gate Award, 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival; Official Selection, 2018 San Sebastián, Toronto, London and AFI FEST film festivals; 2019 New Directors/New Films and AFI Latin American Film Festival. DIR/SCR/PROD Lila Avilés; SCR Juan Carlos Marquéz; PROD Tatiana Graullera. Mexico/U.S., 2018, color, 102 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. NOT RATED MISS MARX Available May 11–June 6 – Tickets $5 Bright, intelligent, passionate and free, Eleanor (Romola Garai) is Karl Marx's youngest daughter. Among the first women to link the themes of feminism and socialism, she takes part in the workers' battles and fights for women's rights and the abolition of child labor. In 1883, she meets Edward Aveling (Patrick Kennedy) and her life is crushed by a passionate, but tragic, love story. (Note adapted from Celluloid Dreams.) Winner, FEDIC Award for Best Film, 2020 Venice Film Festival. DIR/SCR Susanna Nicchiarelli; PROD Marta Donzelli, Gregorio Paonessa. Italy/Belgium, 2020, color, 107 min. In English. NOT RATED IDA B. WELLS: A PASSION FOR JUSTICE Available May 6–June 6 – Tickets $5 Recognized in 2020 with a special Pulitzer Prize, Ida B. Wells was a household name in Black America during much of her lifetime (1862–1931) and she was considered the equal of her well-known African American contemporaries such as Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois. Emmy Award®-winning filmmaker William Greaves' (SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM: TAKE ONE) IDA B. WELLS: A PASSION FOR JUSTICE documents the dramatic life and turbulent times of the pioneering African American journalist, activist, suffragist and anti-lynching crusader of the post-Reconstruction period. The words of Wells are brought to life in the film through the performance of Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison as she reads selections from Wells' memoir, "Crusade for Justice," and other writings. (Note adapted from California Newsreel.) DIR/SCR/PROD William Greaves. U.S., 1989, color/b&w, 53 min. NOT RATED THE LUNCHROOM [PLANTA PERMANENTE] Available May 4–June 6 Tickets $5 Watch anytime starting 5/4 and join us In the LABOR GOES TO THE MOVIES podcast Movie Club discussions Thursdays at 7p! Click here to RSVP Lila (Liliana Juárez, THE SNATCH THIEF) has been a cleaner in a provincial municipality building in Argentina for more than 30 years. She's an important figure in the office's carefully knit society because of the unofficial staff cafeteria, which she runs, together with her friend Marcela (Rosario Bléfari, SILVIA PRIETO). When Lila gets the opportunity to refurbish the lunchroom and run it officially as the boss, this sudden elevation of her status incites Marcela's envy and starts a slow decay of the office's delicate status quo. (.) Winner, Best Actress (Liliana Juárez), 2019 Mar del Plata Film Festival. DIR/SCR Ezequiel Radusky; SCR/PROD Diego Lerman; PROD Nicolás Avruj. Argentina/Uruguay, 2019, color, 86 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. NOT RATED Note adapted from New Europe Film Sales WORK SONGS The 2021 DC Labor FilmFest is presented by 
Material published in UNION CITY may be freely reproduced by any recipient; please credit Union City as the source for all news items and www.unionist.com as the source for Today’s Labor History. Published by the Metropolitan Washington Council, an AFL-CIO "Union City" Central Labor Council whose 200 affiliated union locals represent 150,000 area union members. DYANA FORESTER, PRESIDENT.
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