A joint effort between the Dryden Theatre and the Rochester Labor Council, the Labor Film Series presents motion pictures celebrating workers of the world. The first film program of its kind in the United States, the series includes dramas, comedies, and current documentaries on important issues relating to work and workers, especially aspects of work often marginalized or absent in dominant commercial media. Our films from around the globe are selected to inform, provoke, and inspire.
This year’s selection features four Rochester Premieres, as well as films from Hollywood’s past. One quality of a labor film is that it presents work through the lens of what Richard Edwards calls contested terrain: a dynamic social setting ever shaped and reshaped by competing interests and practices of those who work and those who employ them. The direct results are taken for granted today—the right to unionize, eight-hour day, minimum wage, and safety standards—but the contest persists so long as a system of work breeds opposing aims. Union, Between Two Worlds, Unrest, The Whistle at Eaton Falls, and Two Days, One Night provide contemporary and historical examples of work as contested terrain.
A labor film also goes beyond the factory gates to question the various wider contexts that mold our workplaces and determine our life chances: first and foremost is the capitalist economy whose demands on work and workers’ lives cannot be overstated, as seen in Don’t Expect Too Much From the End of the World; or the various social inequalities that sort workers into privileged and disadvantaged groups, as seen in The Old Oak. Labor films concern the ways workers and unions have supported political movements against inequality as well, as we see in Rustin. Or it can inspire thought on big enduring questions with levity, such as what to do with time freed up when work is unnecessary, as in Love and Work. Labor films re-frame the way we see the world, allowing us to take a step back and empathize with those who are like us and those who are not, and realize the universality of the laborer around the world.
Dates and Titles:
September 6: Rustin (George C. Wolfe, 2023, 106 min., DCP)
September 13: Two Days, One Night (Deux jours, une nuit, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, 2014, 95 min., DCP)
September 20: Love and Work (Pete Ohs, 2024, 74 min., DCP)
September 27: Between Two Worlds (Ouistreham, Emmanuel Carrère, 2021, 106 min., DCP)
October 4: Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (Nu astepta prea mult de la sfârsitul lumii, Radu Jude, 2023, 163 min., DCP)
October 11: Unrest (Unrueh, Cyril Schäublin, 2022, 93 min., DCP)
October 18: Union (Stephen Maing, Brett Story, 2024, 100 min., DCP)
October 25: The Whistle at Eaton Falls (Robert Siodmak, 1951, 96 min., DCP)
November 1: The Old Oak (Ken Loach, 2023, 113 min., DCP)