Films and Directors 2025

Program/Tickets for In-Person Screenings: bit.ly/TixWUFF14

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11 Underground (1 hr 26m)
Directed by: Chico Pereira
Documentary Feature (2024) Spain
Program 12

In 1984, the hard-fought protest of 11 Spanish mercury miners made the national news as they barricaded themselves hundreds of meters below ground in a mining shaft for 11 days and 11 nights in protest of poor working conditions and pay. Thirty five years on, the mine is closed for good; the world in Almadén has changed, but the problems kept growing. Using reenactment and ethno-fiction, a local community tries to raise the spirit of the miners’ strike once more and help bring hope and social justice to their town.

Afeni Shakur and the Trial of the Panther 21 (1 hr 12m)
Directed by: Ray Barron-Woolford FRSA
Documentary Feature (2024)
Program 14

The story of how Afeni Shakur, a young black pregnant woman with Tupac, was charged with 156 acts of terrorism successfully defended herself, without the help of a lawyer and with no legal training, against the full force of the state (President Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, the New York Police Department, the U.S. legal system, and a hanging judge) and was found NOT GUILTY on every charge.

Bang Bang: Backbone of A Mountain City (14m)
Directed by: Guan Yi
Documentary Short (2025) China
Program 5 and 10

Chongqing, a city built on mountains in Southwestern China, remains a stronghold of porters known as “bang bang” who move goods along streets on the rugged terrain. But the porters are slowly fading from view in the face of modernization. From 400,000 people working as bang bang in the city in 2010, they have shrunk to fewer than 2,000, mostly elderly. Are they really disappearing one day? Or are they simply evolving into modern-day bang bang? This film follows a few of them to see where they’re headed.

Baristas vs Billionaires 1 hr 12m)
Directed by: Mark Mori
Documentary Feature (2025)
Program 6

Starbucks baristas in Buffalo, NY, organize against corporate exploitation, sparking a nationwide, generational uprising among working-class Millennials and Gen Z as they challenge a powerful billionaire CEO and fight for their rights - a gripping story of a new generation of young workers, ages 21-35, largely women and from diverse backgrounds - who are fighting for their right to unionize at Starbucks. 

Between the Sun and the Sidewalk (1 hr 16m)
Directed by: Helen De Michiel
Documentary Feature (2024)
Program 13

Between the Sun and the Sidewalk follows two fiercely dedicated young Latino political organizers leading a team of new recruits to mobilize their community to support a sugary drink tax. When the state government passes a stealth law to ban all local soda taxes until 2030, these young activists fearlessly battle the corporate lobbying efforts to block them.

In their goal to ignite a grassroots movement for health justice, the young organizers, Christian and Aurora, are undaunted. Tested during their fight for democracy and the right to vote on local issues, the film’s heroes overcome doubt, fear and powerful resistance as they dare to fight back against the goliath American beverage industry. This story of hands-on community organizing reveals how, through collective participation at the grassroots level, people can make meaningful change that benefits everyone. 

Bev Grant: A Lifetime Of Liberation (39m)
Directed by: Agitator Index
Documentary Short (2025)
Program 2

A documentary short about the photographer, activist, and songwriter Bev Grant, discussing in her own words her involvement in the Women’s Liberation movement, her work as a photographer for the underground press, and her life as a songwriter.

Breaking the Chains of Addiction (29m)
Directed by: Judi Alston
Documentary Short (2025) U.K.
Program 11

Breaking the Chains of Addiction is a sensitively told and emotionally charged documentary that takes viewers deep inside the lived experience of drug and alcohol addiction. Told in their own words, the film follows a diverse mix of people from different walks of life, each with a unique recovery journey, from chaotic relapses to long-term sobriety, faith-based healing, rehab and other interventions, through to losing loved ones to addiction.

Now in recovery or being more healed after bereavement, every one of them is giving back by working in the recovery field or volunteering to support others facing the same battles. Authentic, honest, and deeply human, this is a film about survival, reconnection, and the power of people helping people to turn their pain into power. 

COVID Sourdough (16m)
Directed by: Michael Plewa
Documentary Short (2024)
Program 6

A short subject documentary about the union organizers at Tartine Bakery in the San Francisco Bay Area who successfully won a tight NLRB election despite a brutal anti union boss fight that began just weeks before the worldwide closures of March 2020 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Cultivating Change (6m)
Directed by: Trevor Laffin
Documentary Short (2025)
Program 3

Cultivating Change is a short documentary directed and shot by Maine-based filmmaker Trevor Laffin that chronicles the journey of Michael Scannell, the farm manager at Madeleine Point Oyster Farms in Yarmouth. The film explores Michael's experiences in Maine's aquaculture industry, highlighting the challenges he has faced and his dedication to mentoring young Mainers and individuals from underrepresented backgrounds interested in maritime careers. Through Michael's story, Cultivating Change showcases the transformative impact of mentorship and community support in fostering diversity and innovation within Maine's seafood sector.

Dust and Dreams (37m)
Directed by: Jose Alfredo Adrianzen Salcedo
Documentary Short (2025) Peru
Program 12

In Peru, women miners have been invisible in a male-dominated industry. Pallaqueras, tunnel workers, and mining entrepreneurs unite to demand recognition. Facing dangers and social resistance, their struggle challenges the status quo. Together, they raise their voices and change the course of mining. Through a deep and human journey, Dust and Dreams reveals these women's fight for justice, equality, and a future where their work is no longer invisible.

Farmers Of the Sea (19m)
Directed by: Juan Carlos Dávila
Documentary Short (2024) U.S./Puerto Rico
Program 13

For the first time, this film unveils the ancestral practice of pot-fishing in Puerto Rico, which is under threat. In the Caribbean island of Vieques, climate change is making fishing more difficult. Farmers of the Sea follows the daily life of artisanal fishermen, as they navigate new challenges in pursuit of their catch amidst declining fish populations. Pedro and his crew of "pots-fishermen" find themselves risking their lives by going further into the sea to secure the lobsters that sustain their livelihood, while Cecilia and her partner endure longer hours at the pier to barely catch any fish. Even as this form of livelihood continues to face new challenges, younger generations of Viequenses dream of becoming fishermen, and maintaining the legacy of their fishermen ancestors.

Freedom Waders: The Struggle to Integrate Chicago's Rainbow Beach (15m)
Directed by: Alex Hinton
Documentary Short (2023)
Program 2 and 11

Freedom Waders tells a long-forgotten chapter of the civil rights movement. In 1960, Velma Murphy, President of the South Side NAACP Youth Council, began dating Norman Hill, a prominent civil rights activist. Inspired by sit-in campaigns of the South, the young couple organized wade-ins at Chicago's Rainbow Beach, braving mob violence.

The pair would go on to hold leadership positions in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Norman would act as National Staff Coordinator for the 1963 March on Washington. After over 60 years of marriage, the couple reflects on how the summer of 1960 forever changed their lives.

For the Love of Strippers (24m)
Directed by: Julia Reagan
Documentary Short (2025)
Program 19

A short doc featuring Selena and Natshoney, two L.A. strippers and activists fighting to protect their art, safety, and livelihoods during a critical inflection point for the industry and in their own lives.

Forecast (13m)
Directed by: Justin M. Thomas
Documentary Short (2024)
Program 2 and 14

Forecast is a documentary short film written, directed and edited by Justin M. Thomas that captures the pulse of Times Square, New York City on the eve of the 2024 US Presidential Election. Armed with a microphone and a camera, Justin roams the streets and exercises his insightful street journalism on a diverse gathering of voters eagerly awaiting the election results. As the evening unfolds, a chorus of hope and heartbreak reveals a sobering account on the state of not only US politics, but of American society itself. 

Gold Status (14m)
Directed by: Charles Haine
Narrative Short (2023)
Program 5 and 7

A deliverista (Latin American food delivery worker) in New York City navigates the dinner rush driven by the ghost boss, an app called DineTime. After his beloved bicycle is stolen, he has to simultaneously pursue its return while also keeping his “status” up with the app that is constantly evaluating his performance as a worker and is ready to lower his status, and thus his earning potential, at any time. Gold Status is a fun, engaging film that also documents the feeling we all have of what it’s like to live in a now where everything we do is being constantly evaluated by algorithms. It’s also a film about the precarity of the very “essential workers” that we depend on as a society to survive.

Heart & Soul: A Love Story (1 hr 31m)
Directed by: Kenny Vance
Documentary Feature (2023)
Program 20

Heart & Soul: A Love Story takes us on an intimate journey of the artists and the impact of Doo-Wop, the vocal harmony masterpieces of teenage artists from the 1950s and 60s, fast fading from history, that formed the bridge to today’s popular music and youth culture.  Much of the footage is verite, shot on the scene over the decades, by multi-platinum singer/musician and debut director, Kenny Vance. His film shows how these young, diverse street artists - his friends and fellow performers - broke new ground, creating harmony by singing as one, and ultimately changing the course of music and culture. As a teenage co-founder of the iconic Sixties pop group, Jay & the Americans, Vance shared the stories and lives of the community of artists in this film. Viewers will hear the story of the music and the makers in their own words.

Heirloom (11m)
Directed by: Alec Simmons
Narrative Short (2024)
Program 5 and 18

Heirloom is a queer climate film set in an absurd and not-so-unrealistic 2044. Food is no longer recognizable - insects are the dominant protein, and synthetic vegetables no longer taste or feel like anything - which is why one family makes it their objective to find an Old Tomato, finding out along the way how the food system became the way it is, and what could be done to disrupt it.

Home From Work (11m)
Directed by: Alex Fleming-McNeil and Michael Beuttler
Documentary Short (2024)
Program 2 and 18

In tourist towns across the United States, where housing is scarce, a growing number of workers have few options but to live in employer-provided housing. Home From Work follows two workers caught in this precarious limbo where losing a job could mean losing their home, and an employer grappling with his responsibility to his employees. As the film uncovers the legal gray areas of employee housing, it draws parallels to the company towns of the past, where employers maintained unchecked control over workers' lives. Home From Work exposes the emotional and economic toll of a system without safety nets while raising urgent questions about the future of labor rights in the face of increasing economic inequality. 

IBEW Local 3 Apprentice Shorts (90m)
Directed by: Various
Films from the Frontlines (2025)
Program 22

A collection of 5-6 min long frontline films centered on union life and being an apprentice electrician in IBEW Local 3. Using only a smartphone, SUNY Van Arsdale students are taught how to shoot and edit video in order to depict a personal truth that might otherwise be framed incorrectly in the mainstream media, where stories about workers and their unions are often distorted and untruthful.

Interwoven (24m)
Directed by: Dawn Carpenter
Documentary Short (2025)
Program 9

In the wake of the textile industry's decline, a community in North Carolina fights to reclaim its economic future through innovative worker-owned cooperatives and sustainable practices, transforming the remnants of their industrial past into a beacon of hope and resilience for future generations.

Land of Dreams (40m)
Directed by: Ambarien Alqadar
Documentary Short (2025) U.S./India
Program 15

Filmed for nearly a decade, Land of Dreams is an intimate portrait of Virender Rana, a taxi driver from India, chasing his dream of telling his story in America. While he points the camera at his own life and films a Bollywood style movie, the film follows his journey of coming to America, finding joy as part of a larger Sikh community and that of taxi drivers and laying roots as an immigrant. As he joins the elite Uber Black fleet hoping for his dreams to come true, he faces challenges of being a brown immigrant on the streets of post-9/11 America. Land of Dreams is a letter of solidarity and hope to anyone who has searched for a home and a land for their dreams in a place where they were not born.

Language Back (7m)
Directed by: Dusan V Harminc
Documentary Short (2025)
Program 8

Language Back is a short documentary about the importance of Native American Language Revitalization shot in Milwaukee, Keshena and Bjorklunden with Indigenous Nations Poets. It features snippets of conversation and lectures at Indigenous Nations Poets #LanguageBack Workshops from UW-Milwaukee and The College of Menominee Nation in 2024, along with poetry and time-lapse photography of LED letter panels from the Overpass Light Brigade. 

LILLY (1 hr 33m)
Directed by: Rachel Feldman
Narrative Feature (2024)
Program 4

LILLY is based on the inspiring true story of working class hero Lilly Ledbetter (Patricia Clarkson), a hard-working Alabama tire factory supervisor galvanized to seek justice when she discovers that the company has been cheating her for twenty years, just because she’s a woman. While myriad, powerful forces try to shut her down, Lilly transforms into the face of fair pay. A deeply emotional film with a beautiful romance at its center and an exciting score, LILLY entertains while it enlightens, leaving audiences inspired by the impact of one courageous person.

Motown South: Organized Labor In the Battery Belt (20m)
Directed by: Samuel George
Documentary Short (2025)
Program 17

The electric vehicle industry is booming in the American South; so much so that the region has earned the nickname the “Battery Belt”. But why are producers setting up shop in states such as Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee? In part, the trend stems from a historic lack of union representation here. But workers - and labor organizers - have noticed. And they are starting to push back. How this emerging dynamic plays out could transform the future of American industry. 

NOVA (37m)
Directed by: Yuma Terada
Narrative Short (2025) Japan
Program 5 and 18

Jessica, a third-generation Japanese Brazilian, leaves for Tokyo to pursue her dreams, only to lose her job due to the rise of A.I. One day, her estranged father, Carlos, whom she hasn’t seen in over ten years, suddenly reappears. He, too, has lost his job and has come to see his daughter one last time. Though they clash, the two embark on a journey to rediscover work and meaning in life.

One Big Family (1 hr 5m)
Directed by: Vassilis Loules
Documentary Feature (2023) Greece
Online Only 10/24-10/30

One Big Family chronicles the Kliafa soft drink company's almost 100-year history. Since 1926, family and friendship, playgrounds and neighborhood, innovation and solidarity, have been the “secret blend” of its luminous course. A small universe of creativity and humanity, built in Trikala, Greece, around one man’s vision "to cool and sweeten the world!” The film illuminates the work ethic and entrepreneurship of an entire era, and highlights the history of the people of the factory by emphasizing the small, unseen aspects of their daily lives.

Public Good: A Fight for Democracy (Cricket) (3m)
Directed by: Thien Dinh
Documentary Short (2025)
Program 2, 13, and 16

Cricket, a city wastewater treatment mechanic in St. Petersburg, was on the frontlines during Hurricane Milton. While his own house flooded, he was working to serve his community. Cricket is one of countless public servants who keep America running. Now, their rights are under attack.

Raise the Roof: Building Tenant Power In Syracuse (51m)
Directed by: Gretchen Purser
Documentary Feature (2024)
Program 3

Tenant unions have sprouted up in cities around the country. This documentary brings viewers inside the movement for housing justice. It tells the story of tenant organizing in Syracuse, a city with one of the highest rates of poverty in the nation and an enduring housing crisis characterized by historic rent increases and widespread housing neglect and disrepair. This film brings viewers into tenants' homes to witness the consequences of slumlord's negligence. It also gives viewers a rare look into the workings of the tenant union, documenting what tenant unions do and the processes whereby tenant power is forged. This documentary is a must-see for all who believe that housing is a human right.

Retorno (Return) (29m)
Directed by: Pamela Ysabel Rozon
Documentary Short (2025) U.S./Dominican Republic
Program 11

Isabel Maria Tejera Gutierrez has been away from her country for over 25 years. The years were marked by a relentless battle for citizenship, one she had almost given up on. Finally, her dream became a reality and, without a word to her family in the Dominican Republic, she booked a ticket back home. The film follows Isabel's story, as her daughter Pamela documents their experience.

Rosinante (1 hr 43m)
Directed by: Baran Gunduzalp
Narrative Feature (2023) Turkey
Program 7

In bustling Istanbul, Salih and Ayşe's world teeters on the edge with their mute son. Salih's job loss throws them into turmoil. In a bold twist, Ayşe secretly takes the helm of their motorcycle taxi, Rosinante, under Salih's guise. As they weave through the city's vibrant chaos, seeking a new, affordable haven, their journey takes a dramatic turn when Rosinante vanishes, catapulting them into a thrilling, unknown chapter of survival and discovery. The only thing they can hold on to is small odds ... the possibility of finding a new job, the possibility of their son speaking, the possibility of finding Rosinante in a city of sixteen million people.

Sex Work: It's Just A Job (55m)
Directed by: Tami Kashia Gold
Documentary Feature (2025)
Program 19

Sex Work: It’s Just a Job zeroes in on a diverse group of New York-based sex workers and their political campaigns against criminalization. Individuals appear first as individuals reflecting on their own history, feelings, and experiences. But later, we meet some of them again as participants in a movement, protesting on the streets or lobbying for legal change. The film advances a strong political argument for decriminalization, acknowledging some of the difficulties facing sex workers (estrangement from families, rape, and widespread mistreatment by the police), while also highlighting a positive counter story about new families forged through a work culture, the way sex work provides a livelihood that saves people from the streets, pays for their apartment, and even allows some of them to finish law school. The film is a must-see for anyone who yearns for a deeper understanding of the meaning of sex work and the movements for sex workers' rights. At the heart of the film are deep questions about policing and human rights in America.

Taken for A Ride: How San Francisco Backstabbed A Generation of Cab Drivers (14m)
Directed by: Peter Thomas Ruocco
Documentary Short (2025)
Program 15

San Francisco’s Taxi Medallion Sales Program promised cab drivers a path to financial stability, but instead, it became a financial trap. As City Hall embraced the rise of Uber and Lyft, taxi medallion owners - who had paid $250,000 for the right to operate - found themselves drowning in debt with no way out. Through the stories of three cab drivers, this documentary explores the human cost of a policy failure that left a once-prized permit worthless and an industry in crisis.

The Arrivals (36m)
Directed by: Andrea DeGeorge Garbarini
Documentary Short (2025)
Program 3 and 18

The Arrivals is a poignant documentary that captures the journey of asylum seekers sent to New York City from the Texas border, starting in August 2022. The film highlights the efforts of three small, underfunded volunteer organizations that provided essential support, including food, clothing, kindness and dignity to traumatized individuals and families seeking safety and security in the United States.

The Great Postal Heist (1 hr 36m)
Directed by: Jay Galione
Documentary Feature (2022)
Program 23

Jay Galione, son of a postal worker, investigates the dark corners of the US Postal Service. Across the country, brave employees stand up to injustice on the job and fight to Save the People’s Post Office. The cross-country film production spanned a decade, beginning in Maplewood, New Jersey and took filmmakers to San Diego, California; Gastonia, North Carolina; Washington D.C.; Orlando, Florida; Phoenix, Arizona; Newburgh, NY and covers the movement to save the post office. A moving indictment of the toxic culture and push to downsize, this eye-opening documentary allows viewers to hear from experts and advocates including Ralph Nader and Richard Wolff, and directly from the selfless and courageous people hidden behind the scenes, long suffering and ignored.

The Great Postal Strike of 1970 (9m)
Produced by: APWU
Documentary Short (2020)
Program 1 and 23

Celebrating the courage of Postal Workers who dared to strike for true collective bargaining rights, better working conditions and fair pay. 

The Inquisitor (1 hr 35m)
Directed by: Angela Lynn Tucker
Documentary Feature (2025)
Program 16 and 24

The Inquisitor chronicles the life of Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, whose electrifying voice and moral clarity during President Richard Nixon’s impeachment captivated the nation. From Houston’s 5th Ward to the halls of Congress, Jordan offers a compelling blueprint for uniting a divided America through a turbulent political era. 

The Last Newspaperman (17m)
Directed by: Daniel Napsha
Documentary Short (2024)
Program 5 and 15

The Last Newspaperman examines the crisis of local journalism, its causes, and the proposals to fix it, through the personalized frame of one local newspaper reporter’s life and career. The short film introduces a veteran of local journalism, Joe Napsha, who has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review for forty-five years as a general assignment reporter. The film follows Napsha at work to show viewers how local news is made and uses archival footage to reflect on the evolution of the form throughout his career, with equal focus on the past and the future. Interwoven with Napsha’s story is the filmmaker’s own struggle with unemployment and the search for stability. As the job hunt takes its toll, the film confronts fundamental questions about the meaning of work, its impact on family, and what it takes to build a sustainable life.

They Called It the Butcher Shop: The Fleck Strike In Images (15m)
Directed by: Lauren Stoyles
Documentary Short (2025) Canada
Program 4

In 1978, in Huron Park, Ontario, the women of Fleck Manufacturing walked off of the job and into the history books. Fighting for better wages, safer working conditions, and union security, the strikers embarked on what would become a pivotal strike for both feminism and the labour movement. For five months the strikers faced backlash and police violence, but they also forged new alliances and built community. They Called It The Butcher Shop: The Fleck Strike In Images amplifies the voices of these women as they tell their story of struggle, solidarity, and sisterhood.

Threads Of A Revolution (54m)
Directed by: Danny Mitchell and Ross Domoney
Documentary Feature (2024) Syria
Program 17

When Janet Biehl edited her late partner Murray Bookchin’s approach to 
participatory politics in the 1970s, she could never have imagined that
 this work would one day take her half-way across the globe.  In this film, Janet explores 
how Murray’s political theories were adapted to ignite a women-led
 revolution and bring about remarkable societal transformations in North 
East Syria.  With the recent fall of Assad, we are now at a crucial moment in Syria's history. The country's future is hanging in the balance and the revolution is in grave danger.  This film shines a light on a powerful struggle for gender equality and democracy, imagining what Syria’s future could possibly look like.

Water Lilies (1 hr 59m)
Directed by: Chanho Lee
Narrative Feature (2024) South Korea
Program 10

Hyowon, who dreams of becoming an actress, runs away to Seoul with Eunseo, a high school dropout. The two girls step into the sprawling city with their fragile hopes, clutching at its promises like lifelines. Their first home is a basement room, dim and shabby, the air thick and heavy. But, to them, it is a sanctuary, a nest of possibilities. Eunseo begins working odd jobs to keep them afloat while Hyowon, drawn by her dream, takes on menial tasks at a theater company. They are buoyed by their own visions of tomorrow, their dreams threading through the cracks in the worn walls.

Soon, Hyowon starts taking acting lessons from Suyeon, a lead actress at the theater. Suyeon’s voice is steady, her words sharp: "Acting is the art of embodying another’s suffering". Hyowon listens, but the weight of those words eludes her. She cannot yet grasp the depths of Eunseo’s pain, nor can Eunseo fully see hers. The two drift, parallel yet apart, their lives entangled by need and longing but marred by unspoken distance.

The city presses in, relentless. Their lives fracture under the strain of survival, yet questions linger in the spaces between them. What does it mean to carry someone else’s sorrow? What does it mean to live with your own? For them, life is an unanswered question, fragile as the surface of water, trembling under the weight of its own reflections.

We Only Want the Earth: The Life and Ideas of James Connolly (1 hr 28m)
Directed by: Alan Gilsenan
Documentary Feature (2025) Ireland
Program 1

An iconic presence on the landscape of Irish socialism and republicanism, the name of James Connolly looms large in the trade union movement and wherever radical left-wing politics are espoused. The film tries to place Connolly’s radical ideas and many political achievements against the landscape of the contemporary world as well as documenting his more prominent role in the 1916 Easter Rising. The film aims to reclaim Connolly's story as well as invoke his important social vision, with a clear eye on how it resonates in our contemporary time - an era when even democracy itself appears under threat.

White Mountains (1 hr 26m)
Directed by: Alexandros Papathanasiou
Documentary Feature (2024) Greece
Online Only 10/24-10/30

The filmmaker, Alexandros Papathanasiou, travels to Crete to meet Lefteris Eliakis, a guerrilla fighter during the Greek Civil War and a political prisoner for two decades. This insightful portrait conjures the ghosts of the Civil War – the maverick people, revolutionary politics, and breathtaking events that have shaped today’s Greece. 

Without Bosses: Democracy At Work (55m)
Directed by: Mario Burbach
Documentary Feature (2025) Germany
Program 9

A job without bosses? In this economy?! That´s unthinkable for many. But right at the heart of our market system, based on profit maximization and hierarchy, some companies are taking this seemingly unimaginable path: collective businesses. Without Bosses follows people in collectives and cooperatives who are proving it: A future of work is possible! The documentary shows people who take their working lives into their own hands - not irradiated utopians, but practitioners who are making a different form of economy a reality. In their everyday lives, solidarity and collective economic activity are an important matter of course. Instead of complaining, 'Nobody wants to work anymore', the film Without Bosses shows that collective enterprises can be the key to the future of our work and economy. An alternative for all workplaces that is more than just a daring experiment.

YAPs (1 hr 21m)
Directed by: Miriam Gordon-Stewart
Documentary Feature (2025)
Program 8

Widespread closures threaten the very existence of live theater in America. A traditional career as an opera singer seems less and less viable. And yet: In spite of a system stacked against them, young singers continue to follow their calling, risking everything to gain entry into fiercely competitive apprenticeship programs. In Victory Hall Opera’s searing, intimate new documentary film, 5 young opera singers across America share a year of their lives with unprecedented access. What is driving their ambition? Who will “make it”? And what does success even mean to the next generation?

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Screenplays 2025

Michael AKA Michael Myers
Written by: Charles Dillon Ward
The Working Lives Screenplay Competition (2025)

On Halloween, an ambitious junior executive must fire a scary co-worker wearing a Michael Myers costume in order to get a promotion.

The High Priestess of Anarchy and The Man Who Loved Her
Written by: Dennis Michael Foley
The Working Lives Screenplay Competition (2025)

In the early 1900s, reformer Emma Goldman and her unconventional partner battle for freedom of speech and social justice, enduring escalating government repression and personal hardships along the way.

Don't Call It A Scrunchy
Written by: Charles Haine
The Working Lives Screenplay Competition (2025)

After a glamorous single mother has her era-defining fashion accessory stolen from her by an unscrupulous but charming competitor, she fights tooth and nail to reclaim her invention. With her son’s education and future in the balance, she makes sure the world knows who created the Scunci.