When We Fight and We Build Power are two short films that explore historic organizing victories by Los Angeles educators and school communities. Host a screening and inspire your community today.
When We Fight documents the 2019 LA strike in cinema verité, unfolding in real time behind the picket lines. From strike vote to contract vote, the film documents democracy in action through the stories of some of the women in the movement, from union leaders and classroom teachers to students and parents.
We Build Power is a companion film with Los Angeles educators, students, parents and school staff sharing lessons from a decade of organizing, including the 2019 and 2023 strikes. Learn more about how they reinvigorated their unions and built lasting coalitions. A fast-paced, toolkit documentary.
TRAILERS & CLIPS
HOST A SCREENING
Contact us if your school, class, conference, union, PTA, or other organization would like to host a screening of When We Fight or We Build Power.
The films are currently available for rent on a sliding scale, along with English closed captions, Spanish subtitles, and other languages. Send us a message and we’ll get back to you shortly. If you already know, please include the date(s) you are thinking of screening the film.
EXPERIENCES
Join hundreds of screenings around the world hosted by organizations large and small for community meetings, executive boards, leadership conferences, organizing campaigns, film festivals, and more.
A sample list of screenings includes: American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA AFL-CIO), National Lawyers Guild at William & Mary Law, National Education Union (UK), Alliance des Professeures et Professeurs de Montréal (Canada), local unions across the United States and in Japan and Sweden, festivals including Working Title Film Festival (Italy) and DOXA (Canada), and conferences including the Labor and Working Class History Association (LAWCHA).
"This powerful and beautifully crafted film is a must watch for anyone interested in the state of labor in America today."
- Robert Reich, Former Secretary of Labor and Professor of Public Policy, UC Berkeley
"I've always been told by campaigners that a campaign should have just one theme. I love this film. They had a great list of demands that they won. It's so inspiring. And the positive effects of watching it in the room were palpable."
- audience member at a screening in York, United Kingdom
"In particular two men came up to me afterwards and both said they were in tears watching it. One of them works in the airline industry and said that he was in tears because he felt the sacrifice every single UTLA member made. His union hasn't been on strike for 30 years. He wants to show it to his local."
- screening at meeting by APALA (Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance)
"The documentary helped hundreds of our members to understand what a strike entails and how strong we can be when we stand together."
- over 75 local screenings organized by the Alliance des Professeures et Professeurs de Montréal
MEET THE TEAM
When We Fight
Directed & Produced by Yael Bridge & Yoni Golijov
Edited by Erick Stoll & Katherine Gorringe
Music by Jarrod Cann
Co-Executive Produced by Pamela Colen
Cinematography by Justin Gaar, Helki Frantzen, Yael Bridge, Yoni Golijov
in Association with Field of Vision
We Build Power
Directed by Arlene Inouye & Yoni Golijov
Produced by Arlene Inouye, Yoni Golijov, Yael Bridge, Erick Stoll
Edited by Erick Stoll
Music by Jarrod Cann
Cinematography by Erick Stoll & Nasreen Alkhateeb
Production Sound by Brandon Sequeira
Made Possible with Support from Working Films
Yoni Golijov is a nonfiction film producer. Golijov produced Laura Poitras's feature films Cover-Up (2025), about the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, and Golden Lion award-winning All The Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022) about legendary artist and activist Nan Goldin. He has been nominated for the Academy Award, BAFTA and PGA and has won an Independent Spirit Award and Peabody Award.
Yael Bridge is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker. Her feature documentary, The Big Scary “S” Word, traces the history and resurgence of socialism in the US and premiered at Hot Docs and on Hulu. Prior to that she produced Left on Purpose, winner of the Audience Award at DOC NYC, and Saving Capitalism, which premiered on Netflix.
Arlene Inouye was the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) treasurer, secretary and bargaining co-chair through multiple historic contract campaigns; she is now working with the UCLA Asian American Studies Center’s Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) Multimedia Textbook project, a one-of-a-kind narrative change resource being developed for high school students.
Erick Stoll is a non-fiction filmmaker whose work has focused on labor, gentrification, and capitalism; Erick co-directed the feature documentary América, which was nominated for Peabody and Independent Spirit awards, and was cinematographer on the Academy Award-winning documentary American Factory.
Jarrod Cann is a filmmaker and cultural worker from Cincinnati, Ohio whose work explores culture through cinematic, character-driven stories. Jarrod co-produced, directed, and edited Good White People: A Short Film About Gentrification (True/False + Camden Award for Best Short Doc) and composed the original scores for They Won’t Call It Murder (2022 Field of Vision) and You Are Not A Loan (2021 The Intercept) and When We Fight (2023).
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