Labor Studies

In northeastern China, the Songhua River has for generations served as a vital center – for leisure, commerce, and most importantly, drinking water – for the people of Harbin. Filmed only one year after a major chemical spill in its waters, Songhua depicts the enduring and complex relationship between the city’s residents and their "mother river," and considers the environmental implications of the waterway’s condition.

Focusing on a vast demolition site in the center of Chengdu, the Sichuan capital in western China, a bustling site emblematic of the rapid growth and development occurring throughout the country, J.P. Sniadecki’s Demolition is a wonderfully patient and revealing portrait of the migrant laborers who work and live in its shadow.

What happens to female artists once they become mothers? A heartfelt exploration of how motherhood affects and impinges on one's creative life, Come Worry With Us! follows violinist Jessica Moss and singer/guitarist Efrim Menuck, founding member of the revered Montreal band, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, as the couple attempts to integrate their young son into their lifestyle.

With efforts to recall newly elected Governor Scott Walker making national news, As Goes Janesville provides an in-depth account of the struggles and hopes of union workers, business leaders and elected officials in Janesville, WI to rebuild their town's economy following the closure of the local General Motors plant.

Most of us rarely think twice about being able to buy a fruit or vegetable at any time of year or season. Campesinos... We Will Inherit the Earth profiles three children in Central America whose farming families are responsible for sustainably growing products that are everyday staples in our society - and are available every day.

For generations, Cairo has relied on the Zabelleen or "garbage people" to collect the city's trash - resulting in the world's most efficient recycling program. A multiple award-winning documentary, Garbage Dreams considers the environmental and social repercussions when the city suddenly decides to outsource their trade to multinational waste disposal companies.

In the background of the war in Iraq is an invisible army made up of more than 30,000 low-wage workers from South and Southeast Asia. Someone Else's War is the first documentary to investigate this new underclass created by American warfare and examine what it means to globalize the business of war.

The story of a single mother forced to leave her ailing daughter in Bolivia in order to provide her with a better life is woven into the current debate over amnesty for undocumented immigrants. Winner of multiple awards at Latino film festivals, La Americana puts a human face on this timely and controversial issue.

A rich historical record of Chicano art, life and culture since WWII, A Life in Print profiles influential artist and printmaker Xavier Viramontes, founding member of Galeria de la Raza, whose iconoclastic silkscreen poster for the United Farmworkers rallied a nation and sparked the Chicano movement in art.

The conversion of a state-owned munitions factory into luxury high-rise apartments allows for an acute appreciation of Socialism's impact on the Chinese people and the complex social changes transforming the country in this masterful new documentary from Jia Zhang-ke.

Don Quixote, Les Misérables, One Hundred Years of Solitude. The practice of reading classic works of literature to workers at cigar factories dates back to the mid-1800s. With a Stroke of the Chaveta explores this rich tradition that continues to flourish in Cuba.

How a small labor dispute at the Ravenswood Aluminum Plant in Ravenswood, West Virginia erupted into a national boycott and media campaign that changed the way unions deal with management.