Women in Trades
May 2 (Tuesday), 8:30 PM, $5-$7 sliding scale
Blinding Light Cinema, 36 Powell Street @ Carroll Street (Vancouver)

Hammering it Out! by Vivian Price is the compelling story of a community-initiated lawsuit that resulted in hundreds of women getting trained and working on a billion-dollar freeway in Los Angeles. The film asks, are women construction workers the Rosie Riveters of the present, hired for a short time then let go when equality is no longer enforced? (USA, 2000).

Screens with Plywood Girls (Canada, 2000). The decades-long story of women workers in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island who bucked the trend in the male-dominated woodworking industry. Director Susanne Klausen in attendance. Information table on women and trades issues.

Norma Rae
May 3 (Wednesday), 7 PM, $5-$7 sliding scale
Blinding Light Cinema, 36 Powell Street @ Carroll Street (Vancouver)

An early and rare Hollywood depiction of a working class woman's struggles. Norma Rae (Sally Field) is a mother of three, and like generations before her, a textile worker in the town mill. Fed up with the abuses of the company, she joins forces with a New Yorker to organize a union. A look at the trials and tribulations for women who organize. Preceded by brief speaker from U.N.I.T.E. on the situation of garment workers in Vancouver.

The Organiser
May 3 (Wednesday), 9 PM, $5-$7 sliding scale
Blinding Light Cinema, 36 Powell Street @ Carroll Street (Vancouver)

In 19th-century Turin, Italy, an itinerant professor unites a ragtag group of textile workers in a strike against their factory. When one man is maimed, the workers draw up a list of demands, which are summarily dismissed by the bosses. It's only when an outsider (Marcello Mastroianni) stumbles into their midst that they are able to focus their efforts and bring about the possibility of change. A powerful working classic, the film's stark cinematography shows the working poor in the midst of their life and death struggle.
(Italy, 1964 Dir. Mario Monicelli)

Panama Deception
May 8 (Monday), 7 PM, pay what you can
La Quena Collective Coffeehouse, 1111 Commercial Drive (Vancouver)

(UK, 1992) Panama Deception exposes the motivation behind the US takeover of the Panama Canal Zone and the cover up of its military attack on the Panamanian people. Produced by the Empowerment Project of London.

Presented by: Marginalized Workers Action League

Matewan
May 8 (Monday), 9 PM, pay what you can
La Quena Collective Coffeehouse, 1111 Commercial Drive (Vancouver)

(USA, 1997) A small town in 1920's West Virginia explodes when unionized miners clash with the owners of a tyrannical coal company in critically-acclaimed film from writer/producer John Sayles (Lone Star). Compelling cinematography by Haskell Wexler (Bus Riders Union) shows how racial hostility, corruption and betrayal await the workers fighting the Coal Wars.

Labor Battles the WTO with Pressure Point
May 9 (Tuesday), 8:30 PM, $5-$7 sliding scale
Blinding Light Cinema, 36 Powell Street @ Carroll Street (Vancouver)

This compelling picture by Steve Zeltzer of San Francisco's Labor Video Project conveys the anger at the heart of the working class. Unlike anything you've seen from Seattle, this shows the workers who stuck with the protest in the streets to brave the police riot, a highlight of the video as Larry Shaw's song "Sold Down the River" is cut to footage of the cops in action. "Fills a major gap in either mass or alternative media coverage as it gives a vivid image of union participation, whilst revealing the differences in rank and file and union brass attitudes." Preceded by Pressure Point (Canada, 1999). Recent winner of a Quebec Cinema Critics Award, the documentary is an inside look at Operation Salami, the Montreal Blockade against the MAI in 1998. One hundred activists block entrances of a luxurious downtown Montreal hotel to prevent key MAI proponents from attending a $1000-a plate high-level international financial conference. A behind the scenes look at activism today.

Voices from the Front Lines
May 10 (Wednesday), 7 PM, $5-$7 sliding scale
Blinding Light Cinema, 36 Powell Street @ Carroll Street (Vancouver)

Voices from the Front Lines, produced by AgitProps, tells the compelling story of Los Angeles' Labor/Community Strategy Centre and their groundbreaking work. This multiracial working class movement has taken on the environmental racism of Texaco, the job destroying down-sizing of General Motors, and the anti-people plans of the Metro Transit Authority. Through programs like the Bus Riders Union (an organization of bus passengers) they practice an environmentalism and left organizing relevant to working class communities. Screens with Green Guerrillas (Philippines). The New People's Army in the Philippines join with indigenous peoples to protect their land. A unique portrayal of a political struggle that goes beyond the usual buzzwords of "sustainable development."

Above the Law II: The Other Side of the Story
May 10 (Wednesday), 9 PM, $5-$7 sliding scale
Blinding Light Cinema, 36 Powell Street @ Carroll Street (Vancouver)

With access to 50 hours of RCMP training tapes, co-producers John 'Spitting the Sky' Hill (in person) and Mervin Brown have created a damning indictment of the role of the RCMP, the federal government, and former Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh. This new video (Canada, 2000) looks at the 1995 Gustafsen Lake standoff and how the Canadian and provincial governments turned a land dispute into a major military campaign and provided the NDP with a law and order image for their second election campaign. Discussion to follow with Splitting the Sky.

Zoned for Slavery: The Child Behind the Label
May 15 (Monday), 7 PM, free
La Quena Collective Coffeehouse, 1111 Commercial Drive (Vancouver)

This video exposes the factory conditions for workers in Guatemala, manufacturing goods for the North American market (GAP, JC Penney, Eddie Bauer etc.) A former sweatshop worker and other speakers will lead a discussion around the transnational companies who exploit workers in countries of the South and North.

Presented by: CUPE Local 15 and the International Solidarity Committee of CUPE Local 15

Working Like Crazy
May 16 (Tuesday), 7 PM, $5-$7 sliding scale
Blinding Light Cinema, 36 Powell Street @ Carroll Street (Vancouver)

The six psychiatric survivors profiled here by Canadian filmmaker Laura Sky have survived by creating their own jobs, training, and support systems. Participants of a unique community fostered by the Ontario Council of Alternative Businesses. (Canada 1999) Discussion follows with speaker from the Vancouver Richmond Mental Health Network.

Determinations
May 16 (Tuesday), 9 PM, $5-$7 sliding scale
Blinding Light Cinema, 36 Powell Street @ Carroll Street (Vancouver)

An uncompromising creative and political exploration of the issues surrounding the actions, arrest, media attention and sentencing of the Vancouver Direct Action group. The group carried out the most extraordinary political protest in Canada since the October Crisis, including among their actions, blowing up a BC Hydro substation and the Litton Industries plant in Ontario that built a hi-tech component of the US military's cruise missile. "A driving warp speed dissection of the Squamish Five story, with a soundtrack that alone is worth the price of admission." (Elizabeth Aird) Music by DOA, The Subhumans, and Gerry Hannah. (Canada, 16mm)

My Son the Tattoo Artist
May 17 (Wednesday), 7 PM, $5-$7 sliding scale
Blinding Light Cinema, 36 Powell Street @ Carroll Street (Vancouver)

Laura Sky's most personal film made to date featuring her son, well-known Vancouver tattoo artist Adam Sky. An emotional film about the choices our adult children make and a great look the work of tattoo artists in Vancouver, what informs their creative work, and the function of tattoos in people's lives. (Canada 1999)

The Target Shoots First
May 17 (Wednesday), 9 PM, $5-$7 sliding scale
Blinding Light Cinema, 36 Powell Street @ Carroll Street (Vancouver)

"A cautionary account of the personal psychological cost of commitment to the recording industry; a riveting hidden camera diary of Director Chris Wilcha's stint with the Columbia Record House mail order machine, a clueless corporate hell tower that tapped the ex-punk sub-cult savvy in order to market... Grunge rock! Finally SEE and HEAR the sleazy yuppy opportunists who shamelessly capitalize and commodify so-called youth culture." (Craig Baldwin, Other Cinema)

Talking Peace in South Asia
May 20 (Saturday), 2:30 PM, sliding scale
SFU Harbour Centre Theatre (Vancouver)

This feature-length documentary examines the nuclear tensions between Indian and Pakistan. Lecture & discussion with Dr. Hari Sharma follows.

Presented by: International South Asian Forum and Non-Resident Indians For Secularism and Democracy

Bus Riders Union
May 25 (Thursday), 7 and 9 PM, $5-$7 sliding scale
Broadway Cinema, 1660 E Broadway @ Commercial (Vancouver)

Western Canadian premiere! A feature-length documentary by Academy Award winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, American Graffiti, Matewan), tracing three years in the life of one of the most dynamic grassroots movements in the US. The film follows the Los Angeles' Bus Rider Union (an organization of bus passengers) as it builds a powerful multiracial movement fighting transit racism, cleaning up LA's lethal auto pollution and winning billion-dollar victories for real mass transit. A rare mix of fine filmmaking, good politics, and a day-to-day look at a multiracial working class movement in the making.

Just in time for a June 1st fare increase on TransLink buses for the lower mainland! A must see for bus riders, public transit workers, anti-poverty and anti-racist organizers, critical massers, environmentalists, and anyone concerned with local democracy and the direction of public transit in the lower mainland.

The Bus Riders Union campaign is a project of the 18-year old Labor/Community Strategy Center in LA. From its early days as an independent coalition of workers and community activists that kept the GM Van Nuys auto plant open in LA for a full decade, the Strategy Center has become known for its innovative organizing, often featuring guerilla theatre and props. The Center targets new constituencies of workers, low-income people, women, and people of colour whose collective life experiences put them at the forefront of opposition to capitalism.

Two Bus Rider Union organizers, Kikanza Ramsey and Geoff Ray, will be in Vancouver for the screenings and for workshops.

Unclassified films in BC require viewers purchase a $1 Mayworks annual membership.

Presented by: Mayworks, Labour Environmental Alliance, Canadian Auto Workers, with thanks to SPEC.