Movies Similar to Braunkohle

Bitva pod zemí(1949)

Justice in the Coalfields(1995)

This film demonstrates how labor law has crippled the collective bargaining power of unions and weighed the scales of justice against working people. The documentary follows the 1988 United Mine Workers strike against the Pittston Coal Company that followed the expiration of their contract and Pittston's termination of the medical benefits of 1,500 pensioners, widows, and disabled miners.

La Buena Vida - The Good Life(2015)

The village of Tamaquito lies deep in the forests of Colombia. Here, nature provides the people with everything they need. But the Wayúu community's way of life is being destroyed by the vast and rapidly growing El Cerrejón coal mine. Determined to save his community from forced resettlement, the leader Jairo Fuentes negotiates with the mine's operators, which soon becomes a fight to survive.

Broken Rainbow(1985)

Documentary chronicling the government relocation of 10,000 Navajo Indians in Arizona.

Scenes from the Blackjewel Miners Blockade(2020)

In July of 2019 the Blackjewel coal company announced it was declaring bankruptcy. Miners were told to stop working mid shift, and their last paychecks bounced. The miners retaliated by blocking a train full of coal, camping out on the coal tracks for weeks. Queer regional organizers made their way to the encampment to support the miners. The encampment became a place for community gathering and mutual aid distribution. Sarah Moyer, a film maker living in Kentucky, also made their way to the encampment and filmed this short documentary on the blockade. (Summary from Queer Appalachia)

That's the Price(1970)

What happens to two dying coal towns in British Columbia when an American corporation provides a contract for millions of tons of coking coal? The film follows the consequences for the towns of Natal and Michel, suggesting that industrial growth has its price, especially with regard to the environment.

Coal Face(1935)

1935 documentary about the hard working life of Welsh coal miners.

The Kingdom of Fun(1989)

The largest leisure and shopping complex in Europe, the Metro Centre in Tynemouth, and its creator John Hall.

Once We Were Pitmen(2024)

Black dust, shrill metallic noises, dark tunnels, muscular bodies – all that is the past. At the end of 2018, extraction of coal throughout Germany came to an end. That same year, the voices of the emerging climate protest movement Fridays for Future grew louder. Against the backdrop of these media and socio-political events, the film follows five miners on their tragic, humorous and heartwarming search for a new role in life.

The Town That Was(2007)

An intimate portrait of John Lokitis, the youngest remaining resident of Centralia, Pennsylvania, and his quixotic fight to keep alive a hometown that has literally disintegrated under his feet. His unbowed determination and steadfast refusal to acknowledge defeat reveal a man, a town, a region, and a way of life abandoned and forgotten.

Breakpoint: A Counter History of Progress(2019)

An account of the last two centuries of the Anthropocene, the Age of Man. How human beings have progressed so much in such a short time through war and the selfish interests of a few, belligerent politicians and captains of industry, damaging the welfare of the majority of mankind, impoverishing the weakest, greedily devouring the limited resources of the Earth.

Which Side Are You On?(1985)

The documentary features the British miners and their family experiences told through songs, poems, pictures and words.

Shenandoah(2012)

An epic feature documentary about a coal mining town with a fiery immigrant heritage, once pivotal in fueling America’s industrial revolution and today in decline and struggling to survive and retain its identity, soul and values – all of which were dramatically challenged when four of the town’s white, star football players were charged in the beating death of an undocumented Mexican immigrant named Luis Ramirez. Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer David Turnley’s most personal work, SHENANDOAH creates a deeply felt portrait of a working class community, and the American Dream on trial.

In Memory of the Land and People(1977)

“…It is a film that tells in hurried film sequences and a resonant musical score juxtaposing the sublime, funereal despair of Bartok agains tthe gut-bare tones of folk music. Gates has through his filming technique and meticulously selected mining sites, captured all the outrage and sorrow and indignity to the land and its people that strip mining represents. The film is one that all Americans should see, for it shows extremely well the price we have to pay for strip mined coal.” - Dale A. Burk, The Montana “Missoulian”

Thatcher vs The Miners: The Battle for Britain(2021)

On the 5th of March 1985, a crowd gathered in a South Yorkshire pit village to watch a sight none of them had seen in a year. The villagers, many of them in tears, cheered and clapped as the men of Grimethorpe Colliery marched back to work accompanied by the village’s world-famous brass band. The miners and their families had endured months of hardship. It had all been for nothing. The miners had lost the strike called on March 6th 1984. They would lose a lot more in the years to come. But was it a good thing for the country that the miners lost their last battle?

A Day in the Life of a Coal Miner(1910)

A proto-"documentary" film depicting workers of a mine owned by the Wilgan Coal and Iron Company

Mine Your Own Business(2006)

Mine Your Own Business is a 2006 documentary film directed and produced by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney about the Roșia Montană mining project. The film asserts that environmentalists' opposition to the mine is unsympathetic to the needs and desires of the locals, prevents industrial progress, and consequently locks the people of the area into lives of poverty. The film claims that the majority of the people of the village support the mine, and the investment in their hometown. The film presents foreign environmentalists as alien agents opposed to progress, while residents are depicted as eagerly awaiting the new opportunity.

These were the reasons(2011)

This film takes us into the harsh realm of BC's early coal mines, canneries, and lumber camps; where primitve conditions and speed-ups often cost lives. Then, the film moves through the unemployed' struggles of the '30s, post WWII equity campaigns, and into more recent public sector strikes over union rights.

Iron and Steel Supply of the World(1947)

Time-travel to a 1940s classroom with this exemplary educational film.

Tinker(1949)

Semi-documentary, focusing on the training young boys receive before they are sent down the mines on their first job.