![\"Artwork](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Doris-Bittar-Artwork-at-May-Day-Film-Festival1.jpg\")
<\/a>A year ago, the first workers film festival hosted four films at multiple venues. This year, the event screened 12 films in a single location, the Digital Gym Cinema and non-profit Media Arts Center in North Park. The venue\u2019s new 48-seat theater, in operation for just over a year, was the site of a three-day celebration of labor through art, music, culture and history. Saboteur\u2019s Kitchen was on hand to fuel the festival-goers with handmade tamales, sauces and desserts.<\/p>\n
The weekend event kicked off at 4 p.m. on May 2, and the first night\u2019s screenings concluded with social hours at whiskey bar Seven Grand, where the Phoenix-based punkgrass labor-activism band Haymarket Squares entertained attendees. Brian Myers and Tina Clarke, volunteer organizers of the festival, expressed satisfaction over how the community had come together over local issues related to worker justice.<\/p>\n
Planning for the event started in January, with City Heights video journalist Myers reaching out directly to independent film makers who had created what he believes are \u201cstories that needed to be told,\u201d not blockbuster labor movies with a popular following. More event passes were purchased this year, with Myers noting, \u201cThat says something\u2019s there.\u201d He took particular pride in one attendee, a retired steelworker from Julian who drove down the mountain each day to the festival.<\/p>\n
Clarke and Myers described their approach as \u201cstepping away from the money aspect,\u201d or even focus on the event itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope we\u2019re inspiring others to do the same, because the fight is an everyday thing,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
Best known of the films screened was \u201cWe the Owners,\u201d which was also broadcast locally on KPBS on Monday, May 5. \u201cOccupy Love\u201d covered the Occupy Wall Street movement and its offshoots. \u201cA Whole Lott More\u201d dealt with the often-overlooked right to work for persons with disabilities. And \u201cOn the Art of War,\u201d an Italian film, told the story of workers in Milan struggling to save the last factory in Milan from being shuttered.<\/p>\n
Featured artworks were from UC San Diego\u2019s Fred Lonidier centered on visual history of San Diego labor events, and Doris Bittar, whose \u201cLabor Migrant Gulf\u201d selected a small portion of the display collection that is en route from Southwestern College to Chicago. Local bookseller Microcosm and Oakland\u2019s PM Press were present to support the festival, with donations to raffles that made sure, as Myers observed, \u201cAlmost everybody got a free book.\u201d<\/p>\n
Significant sponsorship support came from the local AFT Guild, affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO. Proceeds were divided equally between the Digital\u00a0Gym, the festival and the filmmakers.<\/p>\n
Clarke and Myers are pleased with the event\u2019s advancement of connections aligned around San Diego justice issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to keep it real; we want to keep it true,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n
Their hope is that next year\u2019s third annual festival will build even greater collaboration and awareness of how much labor matters throughout San Diego.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
B.J. Coleman | Uptown News<\/p>","protected":false},"author":730,"featured_media":247254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"May Day Workers Film Festival advances awareness of worker rights","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/730"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}