General Strike at the Movies: SF, Seattle, Winnipeg & Minneapolis

Every July day has Laborfest events, some of which are missing from the red letter listings. This "al fresco" textbook for all of us will teach the importance of a general strike which we need to put an end to the profit motive that is the cause of the budget "crisis" and war. On July 16, the history of 4 general strikes of Winnipeg (1919), Seattle (1919), San Francisco (1934), and Minneapolis (1934) is highlighted in 4 outstanding films at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco.

July 16 (Thursday) 5:30, 7:30 PM $5.00 Roxie Theatre - 3117 16th St., at Valencia, San Francisco, 16th St BART
FilmWorks United International Working Class Film & Video Festival
5:30 SHOW
On Strike: The Winnipeg General Strike, 1919 (19 min.) Canada 1991
By Joe Macdonald and Clair Johnstone Gilsig
This film provides the background about why the workers in Winnipeg were forced out on strike and the individuals on both sides of the struggle. The attack on the strikers on June 21, 1919 led to death and the defeat of the workers despite their bravery and just cause.

Harry Bridges, A Man And His Union (58 min.) 1992 US
By Bari Minnot
Harry Bridges was a critical and central figure in the San Francisco General Strike and this documentary provides a vivid view of his life and response not only to the issues in the strike but also to the massive effort to deport Harry Bridges starting in 1939 for accused of being a member of the Communist Party. This film, narrated by Studs Terkel, using footage of the strike and his role is indispensable in showing the wit, humor and character of the founder of the ILWU.
Winner of Columbia-Dupont Award, the Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary at the San Francisco Film Festival, and the Gold Special Jury award at the Houston Film Festival. Nominated for 1993 Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival.
See also:
http://www.mw-prod.com/Film/film_harry.html
http://www.roxie.com/events/index.cfm
http://www.laborfest.net/2009schedule.htm

7:30 SHOW
Labor’s Turning Point (59 min) (1981) US
By John DeGraaf
The 1934 Minneapolis truck drivers’ strike was a pivotal struggle for working people of the mid-west. As a result of new tactics developed in the successful strike, it led to the organization of over the road truckers and the growth of the Teamsters nationally into one of the most important and powerful unions in the United States. The film shows how the strike was organized and how the union broke the back of the anti-union Citizen’s Alliance and made Minneapolis a union town. It also includes the ground breaking role of the strikers’ wives in organizing for the strike and the establishment of a daily strike bulletin. These tactics are still relevant today in the struggle of labor to organize and survive.

Witness To Revolution, The Story of Anna Louise Strong By Lucy Ostrander (27 minutes) 1984 US
This film contains the history of the 1919 General Strike in the context of the life of Anna Louise Strong (1885-1970), a partisan and a journalist, who reported on the strike and also on the 1916 Everett, Washington Massacre, which also took place in the same year. The film provides a close up look at why the strike took place and how it affected the working people of Seattle and the world.

The daughter of a Nebraska minister, Anna Louise Strong earned a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Chicago. But it was in the Pacific Northwest, where she witnessed the 1916 Everett massacre and chronicled the 1919 Seattle General Strike, that her political vision took shape. In Moscow she helped found the first English language newspaper, in Spain her many visits resulted in her book, Spain in Arms; and in China she interviewed Mao in a Yenan cave in 1946. She is buried in Beijing in a special cemetery for martyrs of the revolution.

Film is winner of Student Academy Award, the Nissan Focus Award, a CINE Golden Eagle and was broadcast nationally on PBS as well as the Canadian Learning Channel and CCTV in the Peoples' Republic of China
See also:
http://www.stourwater.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Louise_Strong
http://www.laborfest.net/2009schedule.htm