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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.

About this blog
By selecting a film or an image, this blog literally illustrates the vast sphere of work, employment & education in an open collection of academic, artistic and also anecdotal findings.
About us
Konrad Wakolbinger makes documentary films about work and life. Jörg Markowitsch does research on education and work. They are both based in Vienna. Information on guest authors can be found in their corresponding articles.
More about
Interested in more? Find recommendations on relevant festivals, film collections and literature here.
About this blog
By selecting a film or an image, this blog literally illustrates the vast sphere of work, employment & education in an open collection of academic, artistic and also anecdotal findings.
About us
Konrad Wakolbinger makes documentary films about work and life. Jörg Markowitsch does research on education and work. They are both based in Vienna. Information on guest authors can be found in their corresponding articles.
More about
Interested in more? Find recommendations on relevant festivals, film collections and literature here.