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2025 FILM & CULTURAL EVENTS
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Free Admission at All Reel Work Events
Voluntary donations gladly accepted
Tuesday, April 22, 2025 • 7 PM
Somos Café, 112 E Beach St, Watsonville
Wednesday, April 23, 2025 • 7 PM
SEIU Union Hall, 517 Mission St, Santa Cruz
Understanding Gaza Film Series
From Ground Zero
(Aws Al-Banna, Ahmed Al-Danf, Basil Al-Maqousi, 2024, 115 min, Gaza)
Compilation of 22 short videos give voice to Gazan filmmakers to share untold stories of the current war on film. Initiated by Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi. Michael Moore signed on as Executive Producer.
Facilitated discussion follows the screening.
Watch the trailer for From Ground Zero on YouTube.
Thursday, April 24, 2025 • 7 PM
Luna Gallery, 107 B The Alameda, San Juan Bautista
American Agitators
(Ray Telles & John Heffernan, 2024, 94 min, USA)
To inspire a new generation of activists to organize for systemic change, this documentary illustrates how collective action can combat racism, bigotry, and greed. Fred Ross Sr.’s groundbreaking organizing efforts carried on and expanded upon by organizers improved the lives and livelihoods of thousands by focusing on systemic change.
Speakers: Veterans of the United Farmworkers union movement.
Watch the trailer for American Agitators on Vimeo.
Tuesday, April 29, 2025 • 7 PM
Live Oak Grange, 1900 17th Ave, Santa Cruz
The History of Work
(Wendy Russ, 2024, 70 min, USA)
When did we become a society that works so much, and in a way that benefits the workforce so little? This film unravels our modern relationships to work and contextualizes our capitalist work systems by examining how the nation’s past has created a foundation for the present.
Speaker: Dana Frank, labor studies professor emeritus.
Watch the trailer for The History of Work on YouTube.
Wednesday, April 30, 2025 • 7 PM
Del Mar Theater, 1124 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz
40th Anniversary
Watsonville On Strike
(Jon Silver, 1989, 65 min, Watsonville)
Set in the former frozen food capital of the world, this film is an intimate and unvarnished portrait of the 18-month cannery workers’ strike which virtually paralyzed this rural California town. The class struggle erupting in the streets drew in the entire community and ultimately transformed Watsonville.
Co-sponsors: Watsonville Film Festival, Cabrillo College.
Watch the trailer for Watsonville On Strike on Vimeo.
Daughters of the Strike / Hijas de la Huelga
(Jon Silver, 2025, 6 min, USA)
This short film features sisters Blanca and Wendy, and their mother Sylvia, a former cannery worker and veteran of the historic Watsonville Cannery Strike. Sylvia reflects on her experiences of 40 years ago and describes the values she hoped to pass on to her daughters who share how their mother's resilience and activism shaped their own paths to become educators and continue the legacy of the Cannery Strike by empowering future generations.
Speakers: Moderator Consuelo Alba, Director of the Watsonville Film Festival; filmmaker Jon Silver; Daughters of the Strike co-stars Blanca Baltazar-Sabbah and Wendy Baltazar; veteran cannery strikers and community allies.
Thursday, May 1, 2025 • 10 AM
CAHSS Building - Lecture III Screening Room 1401 (building 504), CSUMB, Seaside
See Directions and Maps for this CSUMB event.
The Pickers
(Elke Sasse, 2024, 80 min, Germany)
A journey to European fields where our fruit and vegetables are grown. Blueberries in Portugal, olives in Greece, strawberries in Spain – 1 million migrants are harvesting in Europe. Most do not have contracts or minimum wages; some are illegal or have high debts with agents.
Speakers: Meghan O’Hara, filmmaker and educator, Randy Sabado, former social worker and farmworker, and Angie Trân, activist scholar.
Watch the trailer for The Pickers on YouTube.
Thursday, May 1, 2025 • 10 AM - 2 PM
Base of UCSC Campus, Bay Dr & High St, Santa Cruz
Unfair Labor Practice Action
AFSCME Local 3299 On Strike
Join campus maintenance and skilled craft workers on their picket line as they bring attention to the staffing crisis that the Regents have ignored for four years.
Thursday, May 1, 2025 • 5-6 PM
Both sides of 600 block of Ocean St at Dakota Ave, Santa Cruz
Solidarity On The Streets
International Workers Day of Action Rally
Working people and their allies mobilize to save Medicade, our healthcare, our jobs and our rights. We are ALL ONE! All your imaginative Hands Off picket signs are appropriate to wave at traffic from both sides of the busy street. Parking available at County Government Center, 701 Ocean St, after 5pm. Join singing at RCNV afterwards. Sponsored by the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO.
Thursday, May 1, 2025 • 6 PM
Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean St, Santa Cruz
Reel Work Recommends
May Day Singing for Justice, Peace & Freedom
Bringing together our community for support in stressful times, an evening in harmony with our values. Some familiar songs for audience sing-alongs, some beautiful new originals by local songwriters.
Songleaders: Aileen Vance, Russell Brutsché, Coleen Douglas, Key of Three, Sorella, and Threshold Singers.
Admission: $10. Partial benefit for Center for Farmworker Families.
Hosted by NextStage Productions.
Friday, May 2, 2025 • 7 PM
HYBRID EVENT: SEIU Union Hall, 517 Mission St, Santa Cruz
or Register for Zoom at bit.ly/RW25May2
Stronger Together
Local One
(Steven Maing & Brett Story, 2024, 11 min, USA)
The Amazon Labor Union made history in 2022 by becoming the first group to successfully unionize an Amazon warehouse in the U.S. Two and a half years later, the company has refused to recognize the union and bargain a contract. To pressure the company to start negotiating, ALU, now affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, launches a nationwide strike during peak holiday shopping season.
Adidas Owns the Reality
(Keil Orion Troisi & Igor Vamos, 2024, 21 min, Cambodia & Germany)
Prankster activists perform an elaborate hoax to improve conditions for garment workers in the Adidas supply chain. Staging a shocking runway show at Berlin Fashion Week, they use humor and mischief to make the world pay attention to labor and environmental abuses that the massive sportswear brand is trying to hide.
Watch the trailer for Adidas Owns the Reality on YouTube.
Raise the Roof: Building Tenant Power in Syracuse
(Gretchen Purser, 2024, 51 min, USA)
A view inside the movement for housing justice in a city with one of the highest rates of poverty in the nation, historic rent increases, and widespread housing neglect and disrepair, documenting the workings of the tenant union and the processes whereby tenant power is forged.
Speakers: producer Samantha Curley and filmmakers Keil Orion Troisi & Grechen Purser will be in attendance to present their films.
Saturday, May 3, 2025 • 3 PM
Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320 Cedar St, Santa Cruz
Reel Work Recommends
Sing Out for Pete's Sake!
Bob Reid & Judi Jaeger, Aileen Vance and special guests lead an inspiring afternoon celebrating the life and music of Pete Seeger on what would have been his 106th birthday. In this sing-along concert the audience becomes a part of the performance, as Pete taught us all so well how to do. This is an important time for us to keep on singing out for peace and justice, and when we do that together, we make a difference! We will make one big joyous, defiant chorus together!
Tickets: $25 at the door, $20 advance through Eventbrite.
Wednesday, May 7, 2025 • 7 PM
HYBRID EVENT: SEIU Union Hall, 517 Mission St, Santa Cruz
or Register for Zoom at bit.ly/RW25May7
Bargaining Shorts
Motown South
(Samuel George, 2025, 20 min, Georgia)
EV companies are investing in the US South because of cheap labor, and what workers and unions are doing about it.
Limerent Pittsburgh
(Anne Ciecko, 2025, 3 min, USA)
The revisited rust belt city is a site of rekindling of memories and mythologies of labor and family in this video poem.
Bargaining Forward
(Colleen Butler, 2024, 22 min, Canada)
With unity and resilience, 22,000 public sector workers in New Brunswick, Canada, strike against wage suppression. The strategic mobilization and collective bargaining efforts by the Canadian Union of Public Employees culminates in a province-wide movement that successfully challenges austerity and sparks labour action across Canada.
COVID Sourdough
(Michael Plewa, 2024, 16 min, Berkeley)
Union organizers at Tartine Bakery in the San Francisco Bay Area successfully won a tight NLRB election despite a brutal fight with the anti-union boss that began just weeks before the worldwide closures of March 2020 due to COVID-19.
Speakers: filmmakers Samuel George, Anne Ciecko & Michael Plewa and union leader Sandy Harding will be in attendance to present their films.
Friday, May 9, 2025 • 7 PM
HYBRID EVENT: SEIU Union Hall, 517 Mission St, Santa Cruz
or Register for Zoom at bit.ly/RW25May9
Food for Thought and Action
The Ballad of Tita and the Machines
(Miguel Angel Caballero, 2023, 14 min, USA)
In a future AI world, a strawberry picker whose arthritis is limiting her ability reluctantly hires a “substitute worker bot” who, it turns out, can’t perform this “unskilled” labor.
Watch the trailer for The Ballad of Tita and the Machines on YouTube.
Life is a Game
(Luca Quagliato & Laura Carrer, 60 min, Italy)
13 delivery couriers from 3 continents talk about their work for food delivery platforms and become aware of their condition as workers in the gig economy.
Watch the trailer for Life is a Game on Vimeo.
Speakers: filmmakers Miguel Angel Caballero, Luca Quagliato & Laura Carrer will be in attendance to present their films.
Saturday, May 10, 2025 • 4 PM
Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean St, Santa Cruz
American Agitators
(Ray Telles & John Heffernan, 2024, 94 min, USA)
To inspire a new generation of activists to organize for systemic change, this documentary illustrates how collective action can combat racism, bigotry, and greed. Fred Ross Sr.’s groundbreaking organizing efforts carried on and expanded upon by organizers improved the lives and livelihoods of thousands by focusing on systemic change.
Speaker: David Bacon, photojournalist and union organizer.
Co-sponsor: UCSC Center for Labor and Community.
Watch the trailer for American Agitators on Vimeo.
Saturday, May 10, 2025 • 7 PM
Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean St, Santa Cruz
Delano Manongs
(Marissa Aroy, 2014, 28 min, USA)
The story of Larry Itliong and the Filipino farmworkers who precipitated the Great Grape Strike in 1965 and joined forces with other workers to create the United Farm Workers. Delano Manongs was previously screened at Reel Work 2016.
Discussion of the crucially important but largely forgotten role of Filipinos in working class politics and union organizing in the U.S.
Speakers: David Bacon, photojournalist and union organizer; Elbina Rafizadeh author and poet.
Watch the trailer for Delano Manongs on Vimeo.
Monday, May 12, 2025 • 6:30 PM
Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean St, Santa Cruz
Singing for Justice
(Estelle Freedman & Christie Herring, 2024, 63 min, USA)
This documentary tells the story of Faith Petric, a political radical, community organizer and charismatic performer who united folk music and progressive causes from the 1930s through the early 2000s. Narrated largely by Faith herself, the film weaves her musical and political journeys to showcase the central role of folk music in the transformational social movements of the 20th century.
Watch the trailer for Singing for Justice on Vimeo.
Speakers: filmmakers Estelle Freedman & Christie Herring will be in attendance to present their film.
Performance by the Santa Cruz Peace Chorale, directed by Aileen Vance.
Wednesday, May 14, 2025 • 7 PM
Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean St, Santa Cruz
Understanding Gaza Film Series
Everything You Have Is Yours
(Tatyana Tenenbaum, 2024, 90 min, USA)
NYC-based choreographer Hadar Ahuvia interrogates the roots of the Israeli folk dances she grew up dancing with her mother in the U.S. Confronting romanticized stories about her grandparents, settlers in 1930s Palestine, Ahuvia embarks on a personal journey to reckon with the founding mythologies and transgressions of Zionism. Through her work, a web of artistic portraits emerges—Jewish, Israeli, and Palestinian dancers living in New York City grapple with the questions of what we inherit and what we embody to carry forward.
Speaker: producer Brighid Greene will be in attendance to present the film.
Watch the trailer for Everything You Have Is Yours on Vimeo.
Saturday, May 17, 2025 • 7 PM
The 418 Project, 155 S. River St, Santa Cruz
Understanding Gaza Film Series
The Encampments
(Kei Pritsker & Michael T Workman, 2025, 83 min, USA)
Students flooded Columbia University’s lawn to create the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in order to pressure their university to divest from US and Israeli weapons companies. Featuring detained student activist Mahmoud Khalil.
Co sponors: Santa Cruz Jews for a Free Palestine, Green Party of Santa Cruz County.
Watch the trailer for The Encampments on YouTube.
Sunday, May 18, 2025 • 7 PM
Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean St, Santa Cruz
Liwanag
(John Haas, 2023, 45 min, USA)
Meaning "Light" in Tagalog, Liwanag is a creative multimedia project highlighting the stories of Filipina frontline workers in Los Angeles during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Co-sponsors: GABRIELA & Bayan.
Watch the trailer for Liwanag on YouTube.
Monday, May 19, 2025 • 7 PM
HYBRID EVENT: SEIU Union Hall, 517 Mission St, Santa Cruz
or Register for Zoom at bit.ly/RW25May19
From Sea To Shining Sea
(John de Graaf, 2025, 37 min, USA)
Katharine Lee Bates and the story of America The Beautiful, which she authored. The remarkable life of the poet, novelist, scholar, speaker, teacher, advocate for social reform.
Watch the trailer for From Sea To Shining Sea on the film’s website.
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