Bill Duke’s bold directorial debut explores the true story of Frank Custer (Damien Leake), a Black sharecropper from Mississippi who journeys north during WWI, hoping for more opportunity and racial equality. Landing a job on the “killing floor” of a meatpacking plant in the Chicago Stockyards, Frank succeeds in bringing his wife Mattie (Alfre Woodard) and family up north, but when he decides to join union efforts, his Black coworkers, distrustful of the white-led union, turn against him. Shot in Chicago in 1983 and advised by labor historian David Brody, THE KILLING FLOOR is a blistering and rare account of the Black American labor movement, described by Newsday as “a classic study in class hate, greed and stubborn idealism.” 4K restoration by Made in USA Productions, Inc. with special thanks to the Sundance Institute Collection at UCLA Film and Television Archive.

Workers of the World, Unite! offers films that portray American organizers, unionizers, and labor rebels who speak up, speak out, and fight back against unfair working conditions and nefarious bosses in order to be treated (to quote Lily Tomlin’s character in 9 TO 5) “equally, with a little dignity, and a little respect.” Read more

The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu