Woman with a Movie Camera

Barbara Kopple Double Bill

+ intro by Dr Alice Pember

A double bill of Barbara Kopple’s gripping, Oscar-winning portraits of American workers fighting for dignity, survival and solidarity across two defining labour struggles.

Harlan County U.S.A

  • Director

    Barbara Kopple

  • USA 1976. 103min

  • Digital 4K

 

American Dream

  • Directors

    Barbara Kopple, Cathy Caplan, Thomas Haneke, Lawrence Silk

  • USA 1990. 100min

  • Digital 4K

Total running time 213min (including interval)

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Barbara Kopple’s two landmark films capture, with incredible immediacy and compassion, the human cost of America’s labour struggles. Harlan County U.S.A. follows Kentucky coal miners and their families during a bitter 1973 strike marked by violence and solidarity, while American Dream chronicles the devastating 1985-86 Hormel workers’ strike in Minnesota. These urgent and deeply moving films remain as powerful and politically resonant as ever.

New 4K restorations courtesy of Janus Films/Criterion Collection. Tickets £17, concessions £14 (Members pay £2.50 less).