Winner of the 1991 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Barbara Kopple’s American Dream unflinchingly details the explosive 1985–86 labor strike against Hormel Foods in Austin, Minnesota, a city ripped apart in the tumult. Fed up with dangerous plant conditions and drastic wage cuts, Austin’s Local P-9 went against the advice of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and, with the help of labor activist Ray Rogers’s campaign to damage the meatpacking giant’s public reputation, conducted a nearly yearlong walkout. But as the strike dragged on, some workers found themselves desperate to make ends meet and ready to cross the picket line, dividing a community already betrayed by a once progressive company and roiled by blockades, riots, and the intervention of the National Guard. Following up her landmark documentary Harlan County U.S.A. with another engrossing report from the trenches of working-class America, Kopple poignantly captures the human and political costs of one of the most significant setbacks to organized labor amid the unchecked corporatism of the Reaganomics era.

The May 17 screening will be presented with an introduction by filmmaker Barbara Kopple, who will also participate in a Q&A for her iconic documentary Harlan County, U.S.A. earlier that day.

Supervised and approved by director Barbara Kopple, this 4K digital restoration was undertaken by Janus Films and the Criterion Collection from a scan of the 16mm internegative. The original monaural soundtrack was remastered from the 35 mm DME magnetic track.

Tickets:

May 1 (May Day) screening: $11 (members), $16 (nonmembers)

May 17 screening introduced by director Barbara Kopple: $15 (members), $20 (nonmembers)