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Education International

Unions in Motion – film festival focuses on rights

published 22 June 2011 updated 14 July 2011

The international Trade Union Film Festival – ’Unions in Motion’ – has shown a variety of short and feature films, related to trade union activity and the fight back against austerity cuts, at Landschaftspark Nord, in Duisburg, Germany.

The two-day film festival was organised by the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF) and ran from 10-11 June, with 17 short films being screened.

The films were submitted to the festival from unions in Australia; Belgium; China; Germany; India; Pakistan; Spain, and the United States of America, as well as from UNI, the global union federation.

The festival also offered workshops on how trade unions can produce effective audiovisual tools for the benefit of their members.

EMF’s former General Secretary, Peter Scherrer, attended the opening and said: “Trade unions are using audiovisual tools to illustrate the challenges of a changing society and industry as well as the need to safeguard jobs and a future for all workers.”

Over the last four years the Labour Film Shorts Festival has taken place in Geneva, Switzerland, enabling unions and working people around the world to share their stories. In order to reach a wider, this year’s festival focused on an online and DVD presentation to be submitted to more than 36 labour-related film festivals around the world. The one-hour DVD features short films from different parts of the world that are good examples of communicating labour stories and messages.

EI has previously participated in the Labour Film Shorts Festival by entering a video on child labour.

To learn more about ’Unions in Motion’, please click here. This year’s programme is also available here.