Minnesota Film Arts is currently promoting a 3-week Jewish Film Series at the Oak Street Cinema. This week's film is "Rags to Riches to Rags" which will play November 19, 2009 at 7:15 p.m. This one showing is free to the public.
"Rags to Riches to Rags" Film
Minnesota Film Arts, a non-profits arts organization devoted to the
exhibition of international and independent film in Minneapolis currently
has a 3-week Jewish Film Series playing at the Oak Street Cinema, off
Washington in Stadium Village. The Series is made up of seven films and one
of them is called Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags it will play Thursday
November 19th at 7:15pm, this one showing is free to the public.
A little about the film:
New York City's garment district has been a microcosm of the American
economy for the past century. It was the place for new immigrants to start
climbing the ladder. During the early twentieth century, the industry
absorbed Italians and Eastern European Jews who called it the schmatta
business (Yiddish for "rags"). Later, Latinos and other ethnicities
flowed in. For a period, the clothing industry was the biggest employer in
the United States, producing ninety-five per cent of the country's
garments. Today that figure has plummeted to five per cent. In Schmatta:
Rags to Riches to Rags, director Marc Levin explores this dramatic shift in
statistics by looking at the historical context and human faces behind it.
