International Working Class Film and Video Festival (Night 4)

International Working Class Film and Video Festival (Night 4)
July 16 (Friday) 7:30 p.m. $5 to $7 (sliding scale)
Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts
2868 Mission St. (near 25th St.), San Francisco
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"Love, Women, and Flowers" (Amor, mujeres y flores)
A film by Marta Rodriguez and Jorge Silva, 1988 (58 minutes) Columbia
Flowers are Colombia's third largest export. Behind the beauty of carnations sold in the U.S. is a horror story of hazardous working conditions for 60,000 women who labor in the flower industry. The use of pesticides and fungicides, some of which are banned in the developed countries which manufacture them, has drastic health and environmental consequences. This beautiful and powerful documentary is the final collaborative effort of Marta Rodriguez and her husband Jorge Silva. The filmmakers evoke the testimonies of the women workers, and document their efforts to organize, with urgency and intimacy. (Spanish with English subtitles)
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"Open the Road to the Women Fighters" (Paso a las luchadoras)
A film by the Ojo Obrero Collective, 2004 (33 minutes) Argentina
Thousands of women in Argentina have taken up the struggle for liberation by their own hand. This film focuses on seven women and their day-to-day struggle against sexism in all aspects of their lives. These women see their oppression as created by the capitalist social system -- in the lack of jobs, in the double burden of exploitation that working women face, in domestic and institutional violence, and in the lack of freedom to govern one's own body. (Abortion remains illegal in Argentina.) These women look to the creation of an independent assembly of the working class as the way forward in the fight for working women's power. (Spanish with English subtitles)
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LaborFest 2004 is a month of film, music, poetry, theater, talks, tours, and other events celebrating labor, our history and future. Held every July since 1994, LaborFest commemorates San Francisco's 1934 General Strike. For a complete schedule, visit http://www.laborfest.net