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Obser­va­tions on Work, Employ­ment & Education

More about

We have put together a small selection of relevant festivals, archives and film collec­tions as well as lite­ra­tu­re we recommend. Further sug­ges­ti­ons are welcome!

Film Festivals

filmer le travail
Filmer le travail is an inter­na­tio­nal film festival about work and education that has been held in Poitier (France) since 2009 each February and offers a cross-genre programme for young and old as well as accom­pany­ing events.

Rochester Labor Film Series
An initia­ti­ve of the Rochester Labor Council and the George Eastman Museum, the Rochester Labor Film Series has presented feature films and docu­men­ta­ries since 1989 that depict important aspects of labor. Alle programme including detailed descrip­ti­ons of the appro­xi­mate­ly 300 films are available on the website.

Reel Work
The Reel Work May Day Labor Film Festival has taken place in and around Santa Cruz, Cali­for­nia, during the first week of May every year since 2000. The focus is on docu­men­ta­ries on ine­qua­li­ty issues and the history and culture of the labour movement.

this human world 
this human world is an annual film festival that has been taking place in Vienna since 2008. It presents inter­na­tio­nal and national docu­men­ta­ry, feature and animated films that deal with human rights worldwide. The “working realities” series, sponsored by the Vienna Chamber of Labour, focuses on work issues.

SVA Film Festival
The Society for Visual Anthro­po­lo­gy (SVA) is a section of the American Anthro­po­lo­gi­cal Asso­cia­ti­on and organises a film festival as part of its annual con­fe­rence that primarily shows non-fiction films by students, pro­fes­sio­nal anthro­po­lo­gists and pro­fes­sio­nal filmma­kers, including films on labour and labour migration.

Archives and Collections

Labor Film Database
The Labor Film Database offers over a thousand films and videos on labour, searcha­ble by keywords and cate­go­ries (such as labour migration, collec­ti­ve bar­gai­ning). Many of the entries also include trailers, film stills and dis­tri­bu­ti­on contact infor­ma­ti­on. There is also a list of current labour film festivals worldwide.

labournet.tv
labournet.tv is an online archive for films on workers’ struggles. Started in Berlin in 2011, the archive includes more than 850 videos from 60 countries — with araoun 50 new films each years. The films are subtitled in German and made available free of charge online and for events.

PROGRESS
PROGRESS was founded in 1950 as the only film dis­tri­bu­tor in the German Demo­cra­tic Republic (GDR). Today, PROGRESS preserves and digitises an important part of the audio­vi­su­al memory of the 20th century and makes it freely acces­si­ble to the public. The steadily growing stock of currently around 24,000 films and sound record­ings from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day includes not only the complete film heritage of DEFA but also other collections.

European Film Gateway
The EFG Portal provides access to hundreds of thousands of film his­to­ri­cal documents as preserved in European film archives and ciné­ma­t­hè­ques: photos, posters, pro­gram­mes, perio­di­cals, cen­sor­s­hip documents, rare feature and docu­men­ta­ry films, newsreels and other materials.

Huntley Film Archives
Huntley Film Archives is a com­mer­cial British film archive named after film historian and archivist John Huntley. It features mainly docu­men­ta­ry and sometimes quirky and rare footage from the beginning of film, including labour, industry and social history.

Afpa WebTv
Afpa WebTv is a com­pre­hen­si­ve collec­tion of videos and docu­men­ta­ries on voca­tio­nal training from the National Agency for Adult Voca­tio­nal Training in France (L’Agence nationale pour la formation pro­fes­si­onnel­le des adultes — Afpa). Most of the videos are also available on their own Youtube channel (in French).

Journals

‘Images du travail, travail des images’
is a bi-annual open access journal in French published by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Poitiers since 2015 that reflects on images of work in the broadest sense from a social science and huma­nities perspective.

Bücher / Books

Beyfuss, E., Kossowsky, A., & Beuss, W. (1924). Das Kul­tur­film­buch. Chryselius.

Bonifazio, P. (2014). Schooling in modernity: The politics of sponsored films in postwar Italy: Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto Press.

Büchter, K., & Kipp, M. (Eds.). (2007). Berufs­päd­ago­gisch-his­to­ri­sche Medi­en­ana­ly­se. Bilder, Fotos, Filme, Berufs­ord­nungs­mit­tel, Lehrgänge, Zeit­schrif­ten und Werks­bi­blio­the­ken (Vol. Band 21): BIS Verlag der Carl von Ossietzky Uni­ver­si­tät Oldenburg.

Cramp, A., & McDougall, J. (2018). Doing Theory on Education: Using Popular Culture to Explore Key Debates. Routledge

Kaes, A., Baer, N., & Cowan, M. (Eds.). (2019). The Promise of Cinema: German Film Theory, 1907–1933. Uni­ver­si­ty of Cali­for­nia Press.

Mazierska, E. (2015). From self-ful­film­ent to survival of the fittest — work in European cinema from the 1960s to the present. New York: Berghahn Books.

Priem, K., & Herman, F. (2019). Fab­ri­ca­ting modern societies: Education, bodies, and minds in the age of steel. Brill.

Türk, K. (2000). Bilder der Arbeit: Eine iko­no­gra­fi­sche Antho­lo­gie. Springer-Verlag.
Vonderau, P., & Hediger, V. (2009). Films that Work: Indus­tri­al Film and the Pro­duc­ti­vi­ty of Media. Amsterdam Uni­ver­si­ty Press.

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