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Work and Unemployment (23)

  • Alexis Tremblay: Habitant
    Alexis Tremblay: Habitant
    Jane Marsh 1943 37 min
    This short documentary illustrates rural French Canadian life in the early 1940s. The film follows Alexis Tremblay and his family through the busy autumn days as they bring in the harvest and help with bread baking and soap making. Winter sees the children revelling in outdoor sports while the women are busy with their weaving, and, with the coming of spring young and old alike repair to the fields once more to plough the earth in preparation for another season of varied crops. One of the first NFB films to be produced, directed, written and shot by women.
  • The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar
    The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar
    Peter Pearson 1968 49 min
    The setting for this drama is a logging community, focusing on a man who chooses the unfettered life and uncertain income of an itinerant bush worker, even though it means that his family lives poorly as a result. The film is a study of the effects on family life of isolation and deprivation. Features a wonderful performance from a young Margot Kidder.
  • Black Sugar
    Black Sugar
    Michel Régnier 1988 57 min
    This feature documentary offers a shocking look at the living and working conditions of Haitian agricultural laborers in the Dominican Republic. Each year, some 20 000 workers cross the border to cut sugar cane, lured by promises of good money. Instead, they toil up to 14 hours per day and live in unhealthy, cramped camps without running water, electricity, medical or educational facilities.
  • Brian Earle on Merchants and Welfare
    Brian Earle on Merchants and Welfare
    Colin Low 1967 10 min
    A look at the relationships among the Fogo Island merchants and fishermen, and at the demoralizing effects welfare has on them.
  • Careers and Cradles
    Careers and Cradles
    Jack Olsen 1947 11 min
    This short documentary is a snapshot of the revolutionary change in status enjoyed by women between the turn of the 20th century and 1947. The film notes the significance of this evolution, highlighting women who today command respect as leaders in government, industry, science and the arts. Women's organizations and leaders, among them Senator Cairine Wilson, symphony orchestra conductor Ethel Stark and Madame Thérèse Casgrain, discuss the challenges of their times.
  • Courage
    Courage
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    Geoff Bowie 2011 52 min
    In Toronto, Izabel, Bebeth, Natasha, Benoît, Grace and Jean, members of Ontario’s “working poor” directly affected by the economic crisis, agree to take part in group sessions organized by filmmaker Geoff Bowie. They talk about having to work multiple jobs to get by, describe the stress generated by financial vulnerability, and courageously explain their strategies for getting out of their difficult situation. Touching, insightful and full of hope, Courage is a participatory social-issues film that emphasizes the importance of mutual aid and succeeds admirably in condemning the taboo of poverty.
  • Cotton Mill, Treadmill
    Cotton Mill, Treadmill
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    Denys Arcand 1992 2 h 39 min
    English subtitled version of a film showing factories' shutdown. Quebec textile workers organize themselves for better, healthier working conditions while the multinationals strenghten their empire.
  • Citizen Discussions
    Citizen Discussions
    Colin Low 1967 28 min
    By using film as a means of communication, the people of Fogo Island, Newfoundland, voice some of their concerns. This film discusses efforts to obtain provincial support for the United Maritimes Fisheries Co-op to run the Seldom fish plant, and comments on the subsequent decision by the Newfoundland government in favour of the Yellow Fish Company.
  • Cottonland
    Cottonland
    Nance Ackerman 2006 53 min
    In this feature-length documentary, photographer Nance Ackerman describes the havoc prescription painkiller OxyContin wreaked in the already weakened Cape Breton town of Glace Bay. The film guides us through a culture of economic and social depression where we encounter men and women at different stages of dependency. Demystifying the world of the addict while showing us the complex social nexus that led to such despair, Cottonland emphasizes the importance of a collective approach to tackling addiction.
  • Dan Roberts on Fishing
    Dan Roberts on Fishing
    Colin Low 1967 16 min
    Through the use of film as a means of communication, the people of Fogo Island, Newfoundland, voice some of their daily concerns. This film looks at the success of the longliner and the problems encountered in obtaining and running it.
  • A Day in the Night of Jonathan Mole
    A Day in the Night of Jonathan Mole
    Donald Brittain 1959 33 min
    This short film from director Donald Brittain tackles the subject of racial prejudice in employment, in a particularly witty fashion. It takes the form of a fantasy in the mythical country of Adanac, featuring arch bigot Jonathan Mole, Mrs. Platitude, Professor Short Sight and other characters.
  • Each Day That Comes
    Each Day That Comes
    Graham Parker 1966 27 min
    A glimpse into the nature of loneliness. Frances Hyland plays the part of a small-town girl who enjoys position and respect in her community as the owner of a successful dress shop, but who wonders if marriage might not have been a better choice. Disturbed by thoughts of what might have been, she resolves to live each day as it comes.
  • Fishermen's Meeting
    Fishermen's Meeting
    Colin Low 1967 27 min
    By using film as a means of communication, the people of Fogo Island, Newfoundland, voice some of their daily concerns. In this film, some of the problems discussed are the lack of fish and the inability to market any species but cod.
  • The Hasty Man Drinks His Tea with a Fork
    The Hasty Man Drinks His Tea with a Fork
    Sylvie Groulx 2003 1 h 23 min
    A blend of drama and documentary, this film follows several people caught up in the turmoil of the modern world. The drama centres on a woman who has burned out and who holds up her own despair – and her attempts to rebuild her life – as a mirror to the rest of us. With a blend of gravity and humour, Sylvie Groulx's film shows the absurdity of a society dedicated to the cult of speed at all costs.
  • Japan Inc: Lessons for North America?
    Japan Inc: Lessons for North America?
    Kalle Lasn 1980 27 min
    This short documentary is an absorbing study of Japanese business and industry. Discipline and productivity in Japan are much more regimented than in many other parts of the world. For the 110 million Japanese, survival means doing things together, rather than asserting a North American-style individualism. Japan's industry has automated and computerized at an unparalleled rate. Open-concept offices and collaborative work styles offer a model of the changing style of modern work that could inspire the West to modify their processes as well.
  • Locked
    Locked
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    Bhimsain 1997 5 min
    On the way to school, a boy is confronted by an enormous man whose hand grabs hold of his school bag and tosses it into the air. The hand pushes him towards a huge padlock, then forces him to enter through the keyhole: the schoolboy is imprisoned in a hazardous lock factory. Like the other children inside, he finds himself forced to operate a high-speed punch press. Struggling to follow the movements of the machine, he cuts off a finger. He tries to run away, but is recaptured.

    Back at the factory he starts to cough up blood after inhaling iron particles that will prove lethal: the child dies on the job. Coldly, the hand picks up his body and drops it in the box the padlocks are shipped in, symbol of his murdered innocence. How can we live with forced child labour? This India/Canada co-production is inspired by Article 32 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the child, which particularly upholds the child's right to be protected from economic exploitation. An animated film without words for 12- to 17-year olds.
  • The Longer Trail
    The Longer Trail
    Fergus McDonell 1956 30 min
    A story about a young Indigenous man from a reserve near Calgary and the problems he faces when he finds himself thrust into the world of the white man. Joe Lonecloud contracts tuberculosis and is taken to the Charles Camsell Indian Hospital in Edmonton. There he learns that he will never be able to return to the vigorous activity of the outdoors. In learning a trade and getting a job he encounters prejudice, which makes his adjustment all the more difficult.
  • No Time to Stop
    No Time to Stop
    Helene Klodawsky 1990 29 min
    Kwai Fong Lai is from Hong Kong, Alberta Onyejekwe from Ghana, and Angela Williams from Jamaica. They are immigrants to Canada, visible minorities, and women, a combination designed to make their lives difficult. While Canadian society has yet to accustom itself to its immigrant reality, these strong and resilient women manage to adapt and survive. At home and at work, they speak candidly about the conditions that shape their lives.
  • North China Factory
    North China Factory
    Tony Ianzelo  &  Boyce Richardson 1980 56 min
    This documentary from 1980 depicts a factory community in China where over 6000 workers process, spin and weave raw cotton into 90 million yards of high-quality cloth per year. Also seen are the workers' residential, social, recreational and educational facilities, all located on factory property. The film presents an engrossing study of a lifestyle that is very different from that of the Western world.
  • The Riches of Others
    The Riches of Others
    Maurice Bulbulian 1973 1 h 34 min
    This 1973 doc about social struggle draws a parallel between the exploitation of Quebec’s miners and mineral wealth and similar circumstances in Chile. The injustices inflicted on these men are condemned by both René Lévesque and Salvador Allende. The miners themselves are also given the opportunity to speak out. Richesse des autres offers 94 minutes of testimonies by Quebecers and Chileans on a situation that’s unanimously denounced.
  • The Road Taken
    The Road Taken
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    Selwyn Jacob 1996 52 min
    This 1996 documentary takes a nostalgic ride through history to present the experiences of Black sleeping-car porters who worked on Canada's railways from the early 1900s through the 1960s. There was a strong sense of pride among these men and they were well-respected by their community. Yet, harsh working conditions prevented them from being promoted to other railway jobs until finally, in 1955, porter Lee Williams took his fight to the union.

    Claiming discrimination under the Canada Fair Employment Act, the Black workers won their right to work in other areas. Interviews, archival footage and the music of noted jazz musician Joe Sealy (whose father was a porter) combine to portray a fascinating history that might otherwise have been forgotten.
  • A Sun Like Nowhere Else
    A Sun Like Nowhere Else
    Léonard Forest 1972 47 min
    Acadians are French-speaking Maritimers. In this film the people speak for themselves--about their feelings toward governments wanting to relocate and urbanize them, about present-day "tragedies" in their communities, and about their hopes for a productive future.
  • Ted Baryluk's Grocery
    Ted Baryluk's Grocery
    John Paskievich  &  Michael Mirus 1982 10 min
    This short documentary profiles Ukrainian-Canadian Ted Baryluk, whose grocery store has been a fixture in Winnipeg's North End for over 20 years. In this photo study, Ted talks about his store, the customers who have come and gone and the social changes his multicultural neighbourhood has seen. But most of all he wonders what will become of his store after he retires. He hopes his daughter will take over, but she wants to move away. The film is a wistful rendering of a shopkeeper's relationship with his daughter and a fascinating portrait of a neighbourhood and its inhabitants.