AFI European Union Film Showcase: Labor FilmFest Picks

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

The ongoing AFI European Union Film Showcase at the American Film Institute in Silver Spring includes several films with a worker or labor interest. Here are some picks from DC Labor FilmFest Director Chris Garlock:
ALL THAT I LOVE 
(Tue, Nov 9, 8p) Set in 1981, just as Poland's Solidarity movement was about to become an active force for social and political change, writer-director Jacek Borcuch's film blends elements of an American '80s teen sex comedy, a Romeo and Juliet-style romance and raucous punk rock into a thoroughly winning story.
THE TEMPTATION OF ST. TONY
(Wed, Nov 10, 6:30) Veiko Õunpuu's tale follows the passive, put-upon Tony (hangdog Taavi Eelmaa) through increasingly surreal tableaux: his father's funeral procession, interrupted by a car crash; a bourgeois dinner party disrupted by vagrants; the shuttering of a factory and firing of its workers; and a rural police station manned by comically grotesque cops from which Tony, on a whim, helps a mysterious young beauty to escape.
BEHIND BLUE SKIES
[Himlen är oskyldigt blå] (Wed, Nov 10, 9:20; Thu, Nov 11, 9:20)
17-year-old Martin, growing up in mid-1970s Sweden, is given the opportunity to live and work at a resort on the Stockholm archipelago for the summer, where he’s taken under the wing of a restaurant manager who recruits him for work in illegal sidelines ranging from hookers to drugs to worse.
OUR LIFE
(Thu, Nov 11, 7:15 & 9:30; Sun, Nov 14, 1:10) Construction foreman Claudio (Elio Germano) has a good job, a beautiful wife (Isabella Ragonese), two young boys and a third on the way. But tragedy strikes when his wife dies giving birth. Now child care and the explosive demands of his job--a complex web that includes highly leveraged loans from the neighborhood pimp (Luca Zingaretti), the hiring of illegal immigrant workers and blackmailing his boss to get a prized contract--have him working harder than ever.
MADE IN DAGENHAM
Sun, Nov 21, 7:30
Dagenham, England, 1968. Forced to take a pay cut after management reclassifies them as unskilled labor, Ford factory seamstresses organize behind young Rita O'Grady (Sally Hawkins, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY) and union rep Albert (Bob Hoskins) to air their grievances. Discovering a voice she didn't know she had, Rita calls for a one-day strike in her department, and soon the entire 50,000-worker factory is shutting down and Rita is fielding calls from Secretary of State Barbara Castle (Miranda Richardson) about what to do. Directed by Nigel Cole (CALENDAR GIRLS) and based on true events surrounding the landmark sexual discrimination labor dispute.