1922
Synopsis
How to make a film about an event for which there are no moving images? In my search to make a project about Ecuador's largest worker's strike, which ended in the massacre of hundreds or thousands of workers in 1922 (and of which there are no moving images), I turn to other work from that same year. Inspired by Hito Steyerl's essay "In Defense of the Poor Image", this found-footage essay-film reclaims the "poor image" in the context of past and present class struggles in Ecuador.
You might also like

In the California apple country, 900 migratory workers rise 'in dubious battle' against the landowners. The group takes on a life of its own—stronger than its individual members, and more frightening. Led by the doomed Jim Nolan, the strike is founded on his tragic idealism—'courage, never submit, or yield'.
In Dubious Battle

Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan, a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan's vested interests so that justice and workers' rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.
Matewan

Molly, the eldest child of a group of orphans being used as slaves on a farm hidden deep in a swamp, must rescue the others when their cruel master decides that one of them will be disposed of.
Sparrows

Using hidden cameras and never-before-seen footage, Earthlings chronicles the day-to-day practices of the largest industries in the world, all of which rely entirely on animals for profit.
Earthlings

A 5-year-old girl embarks on a harrowing quest for survival amid the sudden rise and terrifying reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
First They Killed My Father

The Amazon rain forest, 1979. The crew of Fitzcarraldo (1982), a film directed by German director Werner Herzog, soon finds itself with problems related to casting, tribal struggles and accidents, among many other setbacks; but nothing compared to dragging a huge steamboat up a mountain, while Herzog embraces the path of a certain madness to make his vision come true.
Burden of Dreams

The authorized documentary celebrating the film that redefined Hollywood, 50 years after its premiere. Featuring rare archival footage and interviews with acclaimed Hollywood directors alongside Steven Spielberg, top shark scientists, and conservationists, the film uncovers the behind-the-scenes chaos and how the film launched the summer blockbuster, inspired a new wave of filmmakers, and paved the way for shark conservation that continues today.
Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story

In 1917 New Orleans, a 12-year-old girl is raised in a brothel by her prostitute mother.
Pretty Baby

Stigmatized from infancy by the fate of his criminal father, a man is bruised and bullied until one night, in a fit of rage, he kills his most persistent tormentor. As the police close in around him, he makes a desperate bid for the love of the dead man’s fiancée, a schoolteacher who sees the wounded soul behind his aggression.
Moonrise

A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.
For Sama

Two drifters, one a gentle but slow giant, try to make money working the fields during the Depression so they can fulfill their dreams.
Of Mice and Men

David Carr is a British Communist who is unemployed. In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War begins, he decides to fight for the Republican side, a coalition of liberals, communists and anarchists, so he joins the POUM militia and witnesses firsthand the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by Stalin's followers and Moscow's orders.
Land and Freedom

A prisoner leads his counterparts in a protest for better living conditions which turns violent and ugly.
Riot in Cell Block 11

A behind-the-scenes mockumentary of Tropic Thunder.
Rain of Madness

In the early to mid '90s, when the South African system of apartheid was in its death throes, four photographers - Greg Marinovich, Kevin Carter, Ken Oosterbroek and JoĂŁo Silva - bonded by their friendship and a sense of purpose, worked together to chronicle the violence and upheaval leading up to the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela as president. Their work is risky and dangerous, potentially fatally so, as they thrust themselves into the middle of chaotic clashes between forces backed by the government (including Inkatha Zulu warriors) and those in support of Mandela's African National Congress.
The Bang Bang Club

The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Hands of Stone

Trevor, an insomniac lathe operator, experiences unusual occurrences at work and home. A strange man follows him everywhere, but no one else seems to notice him.
The Machinist

Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl

In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
In the Realms of the Unreal

An ex-mercenary turned smuggler. A Mende fisherman. Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed countrywide.