Granito de Arena [Grain of Sand]
Director: Jill Friedberg
Corrugated Films, 2005
DVD. 60 min.
"When we hold a picket line we're lucky to get a couple dozen people," said Ryan Simms, a young teacher union leader from Elgin, Ill, after he saw the film Granito de Arena. "But down in Mexico they have thousands of teachers at their demonstrations! It's amazing!"
Ryan was attending a teacher union workshop in Minneapolis and had just viewed the film, which tells the story of Mexican teachers resisting the pressures of corporate globalization and privatization and their struggle for union democracy.
Tim Kraus, a teacher leader from Cincinnati, said he plans to use the film with his ninth graders who attend a small school that grooms future teachers. He thought the film would hold students' interest and teach them lots about both "teacher unionism and the global situation."
Jill Friedberg, a Seattle-based filmmaker, also made This Is What Democracy Looks Like, about the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. In her new film, she covers a lot of territory, interspersing historical and contemporary film footage with short interviews and explanatory narration.