Cobourg Labour International Film Festival

The Canadian Labour International Film Festival is making a special screening of its 2020 award-winning films available to all, EVERYWHERE ON EARTH. Includes the 2 LabourStart Award winners. 13:30 Toronto time on 22-11-2020. Get your FREE ticket to view here: https://watch.eventive.org/cliff//5fa8512a719db70067aa2cba

Congratulations to our #CLIFF2020 recipient of the Best Canadian Film Award, the Miguel Cifuentes Radical Change Award, and the Best-in-Festival Award! The Best... Canadian Film award recognizes the Canadian film which best meets CLiFF’s purpose of telling stories of workers, unionized and non-unionized, thorough film by sharing the voice of those who seek justice on the job and dignity in the workplace. This year's award was voted on by Canadian festival attendees. The Miguel Cifuentes Radical Change Award was created in memory of CLiFF’s late board member and a longtime labour activist, Miguel Cifuentes, who passed away in 2014. The award goes to the film that best reflects his passion for social justice and commitment to social change and is chosen by his family. The CLiFF Best-in-Festival Award is the film judged by CLiFF Board members to be the best in the festival. Each of these three awards carries with it a $100 CAD prize. Company Town is a 52 min documentary from Canada and Director Peter Findlay. On the anniversary of General Motors’ 100th year of manufacturing vehicles in Oshawa, Canada, the company announces it will be shuttering its plant in a year and the union mobilizes to fight to save jobs and the future of the community against huge odds. Company Town

Thanks to all who joined us on Saturday. We 'sold' 42 free tickets. It was an odd film festival. Great films but without the socializing. Hopefully, fingers crossed, we will be all together in the same room for next year's CLIFF. CLIFF HQ will be hosting a special Canada-wide screening of all the films that won this year's awards. Details will be posted here after all the winner are announced this weekend.... As will all CLIFF events, it will be free. Stay tuned...

Bit of progressive entertainment in a safe environment...get your tickets soon as just a week left before it streams.

The Northumberland edition of the Canadian Labour International Film Festival will, like most things, work a little differently this year. Normally we are able to show a selection of the films shown at the main event as we are one of about 50 locations across the country that CLIFF supports each year. And we would show those films at the Cobourg Public Library, thanks to the Northumberland Labour Council. We’d even provide popcorn and soft drinks to go with the movies. This... year CLIFF has moved online and so have we. There will still be a Northumberland event. And it will still be free. Only this year you’ll have to provide your own popcorn. When? 7 November at 2pm (you have to start watching before 5pm, you then have 24 hours to see all the selected films. What? A selection of film from this year’s CLIFF. Details of each film are in the scroll box on the right side of the webpage below. We’ve chosen a bunch of films that we think will suit every taste and inclination. Most are shorts and there is, we think, a nice mix of documentaries, dramas and comedies. Where? Your living room, den or wherever you and your phone are on 7 November. How much? Free. No charge. You can get your (free) ticket to this year’s CLIFF Northumberland at the link below. Please share this and encourage your contacts to join us on the 7th. This year perhaps more than most, we all need some distractions. And a free distraction with a labour-friendly message is perhaps the best distraction of all. Thanks. Stay well.

The Night of the Sand is a 24 min doc from Turkey and Director Ali Ergül. This film brings to audiences the story of silicosis patients who became sick with the... disease from their work in jean sandblasting. CLiFF Board Members said "I will never look at sand blasted jeans the same way again. Most people don't know silicosis is an epidemic in the denim industry. I love that CLiFF is able to bring lesser-known stories to a wide audience." CLiFF 2020 will showcase 18 fantastic films - for full details go to labourfilms.ca

Here are trailers for some of the films that will appear in this year's streaming festival. Date and time are coming but in the meantime here you can sample some of the fine films we'll be seeing this fall: https://www.youtube.com/playlist

Men here can take two weeks. In a month, they won't be here anymore. Filadelphia - 7 min documentary and student project from Brazil and Director Dani Drumond.... In a wooden shed on the east side of São Paulo, 16 women work sorting recycling material in Filadelphia Cooperative. A subject inevitably comes up: why do men give up so early on work in the cooperative? CLiFF Board members said "Great quality short about hard working women, doing tough, dirty work that is needed by society yet ignored by most. Excellent film." Our 2020 Film Festival will include 18 fantastic films - for full details go to labourfilms.ca

Our parent organization, CLIFF, is looking actively for different options for this fall's festival. Stay tuned... And we're not the only film festival having to get creative is the COVID-19 era, we have some pretty good (and big) company:

Early this morning Turkish police arrested the entire leadership of the trade union DISK and possibly others. Updates on this and other May Day news and much more at #VirtualMayDay https://www.facebook.com/labourstart.org/videos/225783098705851/

Outside North America, May Day is celebrated much the same way Labour Day is here, if with more political content. More parades and marches and fewer long cottage weekends (no slight intended, I have enjoyed a few of those!). This year, for the first time in 130 years workers and their unions have been forced off the streets by the COVID-19 pandemic. So LabourStart and the International Trade Union Confederation and the Global Union Federations are organizing a virtual May ...Day. Bookmark the page and check back for updates as we get closer to 1 May. #VirtualMayDay https://www.labourstart.org/mayday/

Don't forget: 2 pm today at the Cobourg Public Library!

This award-winning film plus A Model Employee (Canada), AZADEH (Iran), Rethabile's Story (Lesotho), Zero (Spain) are on the playlist for this year's CLIFF event at the Cobourg Public LIbrary. Saturday 22 February. Free admission. Starts at 2pm, ends a bit after 4pm. Free popcorn!

Five FREE films about work: how and why we do it and what it does to us. Comedic, dramatic and documentary takes on the world of work. 1pm-2pm: A Model Employee (Canada), AZADEH (Iran), Rethabile's Story (Lesotho), Zero (Spain). 3pm-3:15pm: Intermission (a chance to refill your bag with FREE popcorn).... 3:15pm-4:15pm: Town of Widows (Canada). In Peterborough ON, a factory town both sustained and poisoned by big industry, a growing group of widows, workers and family members fight for justice in a system stacked against injured workers. Co-sponsored by the Northumberland Labour Council. For more information contact [email protected] or 905-376-3110. 2pm-4:30pm (break incl.) on Saturday 22 February at the Cobourg Public Library.