Organized and presented by the Metropolitan Washington Council of the AFL-CIO, the Debs- Jones-Douglass Institute and the American Film Institute, DC Labor Filmfest 2005 boasts an array of new films and beloved classics about work and workers, from the American office place to the far-flung factories of the global economy. Special guest include Jane Fonda and Barbara Kopple. For more information, visit www.dclaborfilmfest.org.

AFI Member Passes will be accepted at all screenings in the DC Labor Filmfest except the special screening of NINE TO FIVE.

25TH ANNIVERSARY!
Jane Fonda in Person with
NINE TO FIVE

The hilarious caper in which Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton take on their "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" boss. Undervalued and underpaid, the secretaries take over the office and implement flex time, day care, equal pay and more.

DIR Colin Higgins; SCR Patricia Resnick & Colin Higgins; PROD Bruce Gilbert. US, 1980, 110 min. RATED PG

Tickets are $15. Proceeds from this special 25th anniversary screening will benefit the organization Working America.

Jane Fonda will appear live onstage along with Working America Executive Director Karen Nussbaum, co-founder of 9to5, the organization for women office workers that inspired the film.

OPENING NIGHT!
Director David Redmon in Person with the Washington, DC Premiere of
MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA

Ever wonder where those colorful Mardi Gras beads come from? This fresh look at globalization documents the beads' journey from the battered fingers of young women in a factory in Fuzhou, China, to the necks of revelers at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

DIR/SCR/PROD David Redmon. US, 2005, 74 min. UNRATED

Filmmaker Barbara Kopple in Person with
HARLAN COUNTY, USA

Legendary documentarian Barbara Kopple won the first of her two Academy Awards for this film about a coal miners' strike in "bloody Harlan County," Kentucky. "The film's power comes from Kopple's intimate involvement with the people," says film writer Peter Biskind, "the risks she took, the places--jails, courtrooms, stockholders' meetings-- into which she forced her camera."

NOTE: Barbara Kopple will appear at AFI Silver ONLY at the Friday, Sept. 16 show of HARLAN COUNTY, USA, and NOT at the Monday, Sept. 19 show.

DIR/SCR/PROD Barbara Kopple. US, 1976, 103 min. UNRATED

OFFICE SPACE

"Work sucks." This outrageous tale was ignored upon its theatrical release, then discovered by legions who have made it an all-time-great cult classic. Written and directed by Mike Judge (TV's BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD, KING OF THE HILL and Fox's soon-to-be-released IDIOCRACY).

DIR/SCR Mike Judge; PROD Daniel Rappaport and Michael Rotenberg. US, 1999, 89 min. RATED R

AMERICAN DREAM

Barbara Kopple won her second Academy Award for Best Documentary for this film about the 1985 Hormel strike in Minnesota. In addition to the usual struggle, this strike reveals conflicts between the local union and national leaders of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. Kopple sacrifices the easy drama of good and bad for a vastly more compelling portrait of the disintegration of the American Dream.

Director Filmmaker Barbara Kopple has been invited to attend this screening of AMERICAN DREAM. Check www.AFI.com/Silver for updates.

DIR/SCR/PROD Barbara Kopple; PROD Arthur Cohn. US, 1991, 98 min. RATED PG-13

Washington, DC Premiere!
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERATOR
[Le fantôme de l'opératrice]

"This wry film reveals a little- known chapter in labor history: female telephone operators' central place in the development of global communications. With an eye for the quirky and humorous, Caroline Martel assembles clips from more than 100 industrial, advertising and scientific management films produced in North America between 1903 and 1989 by Bell and Western Electric--and transforms them into a dreamlike montage documentary."
-- Women Make Movies.

DIR/SCR/PROD Caroline Martel. Canada, 2004, color and b&w, 65 min. In French and English with English subtitles. UNRATED

PLUS
LIVING TO WORK

"This visual poem explores the relationship between the upper class obsession with success and the working class struggle to make ends meet, asking whether living to work is living at all."
--SILVERDOCS 2005.

DIR/SCR/PROD Leah Wolchok. US, 2004, color, 9 min. UNRATED

IL POSTO
[The job]

Sandro Panseri ventures from a small village to Milan in search of employment. But he finds himself on the bottom rung of the bureaucratic ladder, with daunting prospects, then finds reason for hope. A tender coming-of-age story laced with sharp observations on the dehumanizing aspects of corporate enterprise.

DIR/SCR Ermanno Olmi; SCR Ettore Lombardo; PROD Alberto Soffientini. Italy, 1961, b&w, 90 min. In Italian with English subtitles. UNRATED

OFF TO WAR

Brothers and native Arkansan documentarians Brent and Craig Renaud track the soldiers of an Arkansas National Guard unit as they leave home to undergo a forced transformation to soldiering full-time in Iraq.

DIR/SCR/PROD Brent Renaud and Craig Renaud. US, 2004, 80 min. UNRATED

Co-Presented by Cinema Tropical
MAIDS
[Domésticas]

Based on a hugely popular stage play, this fast, sexy and life-affirming film from the director of CITY OF GOD and THE CONSTANT GARDENER follows five maids brought together by drudgery and the bus they all ride.

DIR/SCR Fernando Meirelles and Nando Olival; SCR Cec’lia Homem de Mello and Renata Melo, from the play by Melo. Brazil, 2001, 85 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles. UNRATED

Director Alexandra Lescaze in person with
WHERE DO YOU STAND? STORIES FROM AN AMERICAN MILL

In 1999, after a quarter century of struggle, textile workers in North Carolina won the single largest industrial union victory in the history of the South, a region long known as a bastion of anti-union sentiment. WHERE DO YOU STAND? documents that epic and often bitter struggle.

DIR/SCR/ PROD Alexandra Lescaze. US, 2003, color, 60 min. UNRATED.

Director Alexandra Lescaze will appear live onstage. The Hon. David Bonior, Chair, American Rights at Work, has been invited to join her. For more information, visit www.wheredoyoustand.info.