Friday 2 May, 4PM

Occupy Love explores the growing realization that the dominant system of power is failing to provide us with health, happiness or meaning. The old paradigm that concentrates wealth, founded on the greed of the few, is causing economic and ecological collapse. The resulting crisis has become the catalyst for a profound awakening: millions of people are deciding that enough is enough – the time has come to create a new world, a world that works for all life.

Friday 2 May, 6PM

Successfully thriving in the global economy of the 21st century and beyond will require new business models and strategies to enable the American Dream of opportunity and economic prosperity. One model that is an alternative is the employee-ownership model (e.g. ESOP, stock/stock options, cooperatives). We the Owners captures stories from the founders and employees from New Belgium Brewing, Namasté Solar, and DPR Construction, sharing the worker’s perspectives on shared ownership structures, highly empowering corporate cultures, linked reward and risk incentives, and human-capital innovation models. The film follows as decisions are made on founding the company, expansion, succession, recruitment, and layoffs.

Friday 2 May, 8PM

A documentary about five oil patch workers vying to win a karaoke contest in one of the most controversial places on the planet on the planet — Northern Alberta’s infamous Oil Sands. These five characters know they’re at the center of a global controversy and yet they continue to work there, under extremely arduous physical conditions, and working long hours for extended periods without a single day off. Why? For the money. But what motivates a person in this situation to sing karaoke, let alone take it seriously?

*Screening as part of the Global Labor Film Festival

Saturday 3 May, 12PM

Around eight million people in America have a developmental disability. Those who work often find jobs in ‘workplaces’ – coalitions of businesses and social service agencies that traditionally provide manufacturing jobs. In Toledo, Ohio, there is Lott Industries. For decades Lott Industries competed successfully for auto industry contracts, employing 1200 workers with disabilities. With the collapse of the local auto industry in neighboring Detroit, Lott has struggled to keep its doors open. A WHOLE LOTT MORE looks at the impact of Lott’s struggles and examines the wider world of employment options for people with disabilities. Our documentary focuses on three unforgettable individuals – each with a different attitude towards work and each with a different disability. The film showcases their incredible resilience and makes the case for greater employment opportunities for all.

Saturday 3 May, 2PM

A tale of two sisters living in the shadow of two Chinas, this documentary by award-winning filmmaker Marlo Poras follows Juma and Latso, young women from one of the world’s last remaining matriarchal societies. Thrust into the worldwide economic downturn after losing jobs in Beijing and left with few options, they return to their remote Himalayan village. But growing exposure to modernity has irreparably altered traditions of the Mosuo, their tiny ethnic miniority, and home is not the same. Determined to keep their family out of poverty, one sister sacrifices her educational dreams and stays home to farm, while the other leaves, trying her luck in the city. The changes test them in unexpected ways. This visually stunning film highlights today’s realities of women’s lives and China’s vast cultural and economic divides while offering rare views of a surviving matriarchy.

Saturday 3 May, 4PM

In 1961, over 250,000 Cubans joined their country’s National Literacy Campaign and taught 707,000 other Cubans to read and write. Almost half of these volunteer teachers were under 18. More than half were women.

Saturday 3 May, 6PM

Renowned for their balance and skill, six generations of Mohawk men have been leaving their families behind on the reservation to travel to New York City, to work on some of the biggest construction jobs in the world. Jerry McDonald Thundercloud and his colleague Sky shuttle between the hard drinking Brooklyn lodging houses they call home during the week and their rural reservation, a gruelling drive six hours north, where a family weekend awaits. Their wives are only too familiar with the sacrifices that their jobs have upon family life. While the men are away working, the women often struggle to keep their children away from the illegal temptations of this economically deprived area. Through archival documents and interviews, director Katja Esson explores the colorful and at times tragic history of the Mohawk skywalkers, bringing us a nuanced portrait of modern Native American life and a visually stunning story of double lives.

Saturday 3 May, 8PM

“America — they’re coming for you next.” That’s the warning from a Wisconsin state employee after her union rights were destroyed by a Republican governor funded by corporate and billionaire donors whose ultimate goal is to break the unions nationwide — and cripple the labor-backed Democratic party. Citizen Koch explores what the Wisconsin playbook and the U.S. Supreme Court decision that unleashed a new era of unbridled special-interest spending mean for us all. And it poses a crucial question: Who owns democracy in America?

Sunday 4 May, 2PM

Four workers climb a 20 meter high gantry crane inside the hangar of the INNSE, the last active factory in Milan. They threaten to throw themselves down to stop the dismantling of the machineries and the closure of the factory they work in. The hangar is surrounded by dozens of policemen and supporters from all over Italy.

Sunday 4 May, 4PM

Fifty years ago Detroit was booming with two million hard-working people living the American Dream. Then the auto industry crashed and so did the Motor City. Most moved away; whole neighborhoods turned into wastelands. But some didn’t give up on the city they love. They had a vision of Detroit as a human-scaled city for a post industrial world, and they are working to make it real.

Sunday 4 May, 6PM

Explores the legacy of the Reuther brothers – Walter, Roy, and Victor – pioneering labor organizers and social justice statesmen, and their remarkable leadership of the United Auto Workers union. Directed by Victor’s grandson Sasha Reuther and narrated by Martin Sheen, the film follows the brothers from their rise as shop-floor organizers in 1930s Detroit to leaders in collective bargaining, civil rights, and international labor solidarity. A timely tale of one family’s quest to compel American democracy to live up to its promise of equality, Brothers On The Line is a dramatic blueprint of successful social action.

Sunday 4 May, 8PM

It’s the General Strike 1926 – only seven years after the slaughter of the trenches, miners unions lead the country against savage austerity cuts handed to the nation by a Liberal-Conservative government.
Set in the village of Carhill Scotland, in the heart of the Fife coalfields, we follow the journey of one mining community as they are pushed inevitably towards a labour conflict with the Kingdom Coal Company in a seven month long lock out. “Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day” is the chant as the coal company demand longer hours for less pay.