The Flickering Flame

Documentary following dockers of Liverpool sacked in a labour dispute and their supporters’ group, Women of the Waterfront, as they receive support from around the world and seek solidarity at the TUC conference.

Westray

In this feature documentary, filmmaker Paul Cowan offers an innovative, moving account of the Westray coal mine disaster that killed 26 men in Nova Scotia on May 9, 1992. The film focuses on the lives of three widows and three miners lucky enough not to be underground that day when the methane and coal dust ignited. But their lives were torn apart by the events. Meet some of the working men, who felt they had no option but to stay on at Westray. And wives, who heard the rumours, saw their men sometimes bloodied from accidents and stood by them, hoping it would all turn out all right. This is a film about working people everywhere whose lives are often entrusted to companies that violate the most fundamental rules of safety and decency in the name of profit.

Under the Cloud

An investigation into the unfolding history of nuclear testing, uranium mining, and nuclear waste disposal on indigenous lands in the US. It raises the voices of those who witnessed and experienced the consequences of nuclear colonialism and those who still resist.

Mother Jones, America's Most Dangerous Woman

Documentary overview of the life and causes of "Mother" Jones.

Thatcher vs The Miners: The Battle for Britain

On the 5th of March 1985, a crowd gathered in a South Yorkshire pit village to watch a sight none of them had seen in a year. The villagers, many of them in tears, cheered and clapped as the men of Grimethorpe Colliery marched back to work accompanied by the village’s world-famous brass band. The miners and their families had endured months of hardship. It had all been for nothing. The miners had lost the strike called on March 6th 1984. They would lose a lot more in the years to come. But was it a good thing for the country that the miners lost their last battle?

A Century of Struggle

A Century of Struggle chronicles the hundred-year history of the NZ Seamen’s Union from its formation in 1879. Using original film and archive footage, it examines the working lives of seamen and the battles fought by their union from the sailing ships of colonial days to the modern turbine-powered container vessels. Because the Seamen’s Union was frequently at the forefront of working-class struggle in New Zealand, its story involves most of the crucial issues and events in the history of the union movement generally, including the great maritime strikes of 1890 and 1913 and the waterfront dispute of 1951.

The Delano Manongs: Forgotten Heroes Of The United Farm Workers Movement

The Delano Manongs tells the story of farm labor organizer Larry Itliong and a group of Filipino farm workers who instigated one of the American farm labor movement’s finest hours – The Delano Grape Strike of 1965 that brought about the creation of the United Farm Workers Union (UFW). While the movement is known for Cesar Chavez’s leadership and considered a Chicano movement, Filipinos played a pivotal role. Filipino labor organizer, Larry Itliong, a cigar-chomping union veteran, organized a group of 1500 Filipinos to strike against the grape growers of Delano, California, beginning a collaboration between Filipinos, Chicanos and other ethnic workers that would go on for years.

Vigo 1972

‘VIGO 1972’ narrates the events which took place in Vigo in September 1972, when the firing of five Citröen auto workers resulted in the largest general strike in the history of Galicia — with over thirty thousand workers — all of this during the Franco dictatorship in Spain.

The Wild

Newly into addiction recovery, an urgent threat emerges to spur filmmaker, Mark Titus back to the Alaskan wilderness - where the people of Bristol Bay and the world's last intact wild salmon runs face devastation if a massive copper mine is constructed.

Im Westen ging die Sonne auf

The mining industry, which always had been “sponsor” and “financier” of the soccer clubs in the Ruhr valley during the post-war period, doesn’t exist anymore nowadays in that form. Many of the once glorious clubs which dominated German soccer until the 1970s faded into obscurity without financial backers. The documentary “Im Westen ging die Sonne auf" ("The sun had risen in the west“) shows the history of the “Revierfußball” from after the second World War until the decline of the mining industry and recalls legendary players and forgotten clubs. The film shows especially how deeply rooted the sport was back then in the entire lifestyle of the Ruhr area - in private life as well as in society - and how structural change also left clearly visible marks in sports. With pictures from back then, interviews with contemporary witnesses, and footage of original locations nowadays, a contemporary document of German post-war history, by taking the example of soccer, has been created.

Malartic

Ten years after an enormous open-pit gold mine began operations in Malartic, the hoped-for economic miracle is nothing more than a mirage. Filmmaker Nicolas Paquet explores the glaring contrast between the town’s decline and the wealth of the mining company, along with the mechanisms of an opaque decision-making system in which ordinary people have little say. Part anthropological study, part investigation into the corridors of power, Malartic addresses the fundamental issue of sustainable and fair land management.

The Four Corners: A National Sacrifice Area?

Documents the cultural and ecological impacts of coal stripmining, uranium mining, and oil shale development in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona – homeland of the Hopi and Navajo.

Mémoires d'un condamné

Action 37

Centralia: Pennsylvania's Lost Town

A small town is overcome by a massive underground coal fire in 1962. As a result hundreds of residents had to be relocated.

Uranium Drive-In

A new uranium mill -- the first in the U.S. in 30 years -- would re-connect the economically devastated rural mining community of Naturita, Colorado, to its proud history supplying the material for the first atomic bomb. Some view it as a greener energy source freeing America from its dependence on foreign oil, while others worry about the severe health and environmental consequences of the last uranium boom.

Senghenydd - Glamorgan, South Wales, portrait of a mining town

Warwick company newsreel material of the Universal Colliery at Senghenydd on fire after an explosion on 14th October 1913, and footage of a funeral procession for some of the 439 mine workers who were killed, is followed by a collage of images of the town and its people as they are 50 years later. Wynford Vaughan Thomas, narrating his own commentary, wonders if "colour"- superficial re-decoration – can really make any difference to "the inner heart of Senghenydd". Shot on spare, blank pieces of film by James Clark. Assisted by local amateur photographer and former miner Bill Probert. Script written and narrated by Wynford Vaughan Thomas. 1964.

Uhelný lom

The Year of the Discovery

In 1992 – 500 years after the beginning of Spain's global empire with the discovery of America – Spain proudly presented itself to the international community as a modern, developed, dynamic country through the Olympic Games in Barcelona and the Expo in Seville. But for filmmaker Luis López Carrasco (1981, Murcia), 1992 was also the year in which the regional parliament building in Cartagena was razed during furious protests against the threatened closure of various local industries. El año del descubrimiento revives this almost forgotten history in a typical Spanish bar in Cartagena, where different generations come together to drink, eat, smoke and talk. Stories from witnesses, demonstrators and strikers from back then and discussions among younger café visitors on themes such as class consciousness, the economic crisis and the role of unions percolate to the surface amidst talk of other life issues.

Grandin, les raisons d'une victoire

For a year, the women working at the Grandin factory in Montreuil, France occupy the place and lead numerous actions.