Films at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2017
Tuesday 1st August –Saturday 5th August 2017
Admission is free and all are welcome.
Tuesday 1st August
Maldron Hotel, Shandon 2.30: “Mother Jones, America’s Most Dangerous Woman” a film by Rosemary Feurer and Laura Vazquez.
Mother Jones: America’s Most Dangerous Woman is a documentary about the amazing labor heroine, Mary Harris Jones, known as Mother Jones. Mother Jones’ organising career influenced the history of early 20th century United States. She overcame class and gender limitations to shape an identity that allowed her to become an effective labor organiser in the early 20th century. Mother Jones transformed personal and political grief and rage about class injustices into an effective persona that led workers into battles that changed the course of history. The terrible conditions and labor oppression of the time motivated her to traverse the country, in order to organise against injustices. Also gives a deeply moving account of the Ludlow Massacre.
Release Date: 2007 (Canada). Runtime: 24 min
Tuesday 1st August.
Maldron Hotel 4.00 pm “Mother Jones and her Children” a film by Frameworks Films and the Cork Mother Jones Committee.
This film tells the story of Mary Harris (1837 – 1930) from Cork who went on to become “the most dangerous woman in America”. Starting with her early years in Cork, this documentary goes on to detail her life in America following the famine, her marriage to George Jones and the birth of her four children. It details the tragedies which befell her. Her growing involvement in the labour movement in America, defending the rights of children and workers is documented. Through interviews with leading experts on Mother Jones, we learn of her fearless and tireless campaign to organize workers at a time of severe labour strife and her international legacy today.
www.frameworksfilm.com and http://www.motherjonescork.com
Release Date: July 2014. Runtime: 52 min
Wednesday 2nd August
Maldron Hotel 11.am “Ludlow: Greek Americans in the Colorado Coal War.
(Irish public Premiere)
The documentary narrates the story of Greek immigrants at the beginning of the last century, who ended up in distant Colorado working under inhuman conditions in the coal mines of Rockefeller and his fellow mine owners, and who together with immigrants from 22 other countries revolted and wrote a proud page of American labor history, known as the Colorado Coal War of 1913-14.
It is a story not often mentioned in history books, but alive in the memory of the children and the grandchildren of the men who fought for their life and dignity. They recount their family history with pride and anger in their voice, pride for their forefathers and anger for the injustices they were faced with.
The makers collected the evidence – photos, videos, newspaper articles, songs – to create an engrossing and informative documentary that keeps the viewer’s interest alive from start to finish. Under the guidance of director Leonidas Vardaros, the team, consisting of cinematographer Prokopis Dafnos, editor Xenofon Vardaros, sound engineer Andreas Gkovas, researcher Frosso Tsouka and narrator Rigas Axelos, gave their best in this truly collective effort. The production management was carried out by the members of “Apostolis Berdebes” non-profit, Stefanos Plakas, Frosso Tsouka, and Lina Gousiou. Contact www.ludlow.gr
Release Date: March 2016 Greece Runtime: 71 minutes.
Wednesday 2nd August.
The Firkin Theatre 2.30. “Blood on the Mountain.” A film produced by Mari-Lynn Evans, Deborah Wallace and Jordan Freeman.
The film is a searing investigation into the economic and environmental injustices that have resulted from industrial control in West Virginia. This feature documentary details the struggles of a hard‐working, often misunderstood people, who have historically faced limited choices and have never benefited fairly from the rich, natural resources of their land.
Blood On The Mountain delivers a striking portrait of a fractured population, exploited and besieged by corporate interests, and abandoned by the powers elected to represent them. Appalachia is a place of great contradictions.
The beauty of the oldest mountain range in North America, with lush, old growth forests, small towns and isolated communities, is juxtaposed with long‐term poverty, out-migration, lack of health care, inadequate educational systems, and political corruption. The coal, timber, oil, and gas have generated billions of dollars, but these huge profits went to companies in other states, leaving the region destitute.
Appalachian counties are left with little or no tax base to help fund schools, health care, or job creation. Entrenched, corrupt local governments and lagging public policy have not generated sustainable economic alternatives in the region. It is a cruel irony that a region so rich in natural resources is home to many of the poorest people in the United States.
Release date: 18th November 2016. Runtime: 93 minutes.
Thursday 3rd August
The Firkin Theatre 2.30 “A Plastic Ocean” a film from the Plastic Ocean Foundation.
Irish Premiere.
A Plastic Ocean is an epic global adventure following a documentary filmmaker and a world record free-diver as they travel the earth discovering the shocking impact plastic is having on our oceans and the marine animals that live there. The film investigates how our addiction to plastic is impacting the food chain and how that is effecting every one of us through new and developing human health problems. The expedition leads the two adventurers to unusual scientific discoveries, heart-breaking truths and important solutions to one of the biggest problems confronting mankind.
Thirty miles from land, off the southern coast of Sri Lanka, where civil war has kept the oceans and beaches pristine, a global expedition led by documentary filmmaker Craig Leeson is searching for one of the world’s most elusive animals. Blue whales are on the edge of extinction but what the expeditioners find in these remote waters proves heart breaking.
The shock of finding vast quantities of floating plastic in this pristine location forces the filmmaker to think: if plastic is lurking in this remote pristine area what is happening in oceans around the globe?
So begins a global odyssey to find the answer to this question. Teams of scientists from around the world are engaged to analyze and report on the expedition’s findings as the filmmakers embark on a discovery that reveals the consequences of our disposable lifestyle. The results will astound viewers –just as it did our adventurers – who capture never-before-seen images of marine life, plastic pollution, and its ultimate consequences for human health.
One does not easily forget some of the images in this stunning film.
A Plastic Ocean is filmed in 20 locations around the world in beautiful and chilling detail to document the global effects of plastic pollution and introduce workable technology and policy solutions that can, if implemented, begin to change one of mankind’s most destructive inventions. Plastic is indestructible and this year we will manufacture 300 million tonnes of it, half of which will be used just once before being discarded. We can no longer afford to treat plastic as disposable. But can we change our lifestyles in time to save our world and ourselves?
Directed by Craig Leeson.
Produced by Jo Ruxton and Adam Leipzig.
Release Date: 22nd September 2016 Runtime: 102 minutes.
Friday 4th August
The Firkin Theatre 7.30 “The Limerick Brigadistas – From the Shannon to the Ebro”, a film by the Limerick International Brigades Memorial Trust (LIBMT) and Frameworks Films.
Cork Premiere.
The Limerick Brigadistas-From the Shannon to the Ebro tells the story of six men from Limerick who went to Fight Fascism in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). About 240 volunteers fought with the International Brigades during the war and this documentary depicts the lives of the six men from Limerick who fought with the XV International Brigade – Maurice Emmett Ryan, Jim Woulfe, Frank Ryan, Gerard Doyle, Paddy Brady and Joe Ryan.
It explores what motivated these men to leave Ireland and to fight in another country and what became of them subsequently. The documentary follows the members of the Limerick International Brigades Trust as they travel to Spain to find the final resting place of some of their fellow Limerick men and to examine the relevance of their story in today’s world. The documentary was produced by Frameworks Films and the Limerick International Brigades Memorial Trust.
Best remembered is Frank Ryan, born in Elton, near Knocklong in Co Limerick, he spent from 1916 to 1921 in St Colman’s College, Fermoy. Ryan led some 80 volunteers from Ireland to Spain in 1936, he was wounded in March 1937, recovered in Ireland but returned to Spain and was captured in March 1938. He endured the savagery of Franco’s prison camps before eventually turning up in Germany. Ryan died in Germany in June 1944, his story is among those told in the new documentary.
See www.facebook.com/libmt and www.frameworksfilms.com
The film will be introduced by Ger McCloskey PRO LIBMT and Eddie Noonan/Emma Bowell of Frameworks Films.
Release Date: April 7th 2017 Runtime: 80 minutes
Saturday 5th August 2017
Maldron Hotel 5pm. Film “The Mine Wars” a film produced and directed by Randal MacLowry.
A production of the Film Posse for American Experience (WGBH-Boston)
The Mine Wars explores the largely forgotten story of the epic struggle between Capital and Labour over the recognition of the United Mine workers of America union in the coalfields of South West Virginia. These culminated in the largest civil insurrection in America since the Civil War at Blair Mountain where thousands of miners took up arms and were even bombed from the air.
Between 1890 and 1912, miners in West Virginia endured the highest death rate in America. Mother Jones was active in 1902 and again in the period 1912-1913 when Paint Creek and Cabin Creek featured. Later Mingo County, Logan County, the Matewan Massacre and the Battle of Blair Mountain where at least 50 people were killed are highlighted. This film concentrates on a UMWA leader and former miner Frank Keeney, who inspired by Mother Jones went to organise West Virginia. Some of its images give a haunting impression of this bleak period and depicts the labour landscape where Mother Jones organised. One can really appreciate the amazing work and resilience of Mother Jones as the film proceeds.
Mother Jones, herself incarcerated for three months in West Virginia, described the state as “Medieval West Virginia with its tent colonies on the bleak hills! With its grim men and women! When I get to the other side, I shall tell God almighty about West Virginia.” The Mine Wars tells the story on this side!
Produced and directed by Randall MacLowry.
See The Film Posse Facebook. www.pbs.org
Release Date: 2016 Runtime: 120 min
The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 