
The Hand That Feeds
2014-04-05 · 88 min · ★ 4.7
Behind the scenes of a popular deli on New York's Upper East Side, undocumented immigrant workers face sublegal wages, dangerous machinery, and abusive managers. Mild-mannered sandwich maker Mahoma López has never been interested in politics, but in Jan. 2012, he convinces a small group of his co-workers to fight back. Risking deportation and the loss of livelihood, the workers team up with a diverse crew of innovative young organizers and take the unusual step of forming an independent union, launching themselves on a journey that will test the limits of their resolve. In one rollercoaster year, they must overcome a shocking betrayal and a two month lockout. Lawyers will battle in backroom negotiations, Occupy Wall Street protesters will take over the restaurant, and a picket line will divide the neighborhood. If they can win a contract, it will set a historic precedent for low-wage workers across the country. But whatever happens, Mahoma and his compañeros won't be exploited again.
Trailers are previews, not full movies.
No authorized playback source configured. Use the legal watch options below.
Production details
- Directors
- Robin Blotnick, Rachel Lears
- Production companies
- Doc Society
- Countries
- United States of America
- Status
- Released
Top Cast
Cast unavailable.
Title information and images are supplied by TMDb. Explore our discovery guide for advice on comparing metadata and legal viewing options.
Where to watch
Availability provided by JustWatch via TMDb. Offers can change. Provider links are listed on TMDb; full playback requires a separately authorized source.
Streaming
OVID
Rental
Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home
Purchase
Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home
View authorized watch options on TMDbSeasons & episodes
Recommendations

In 1977, a book of photographs captured an awakening - women shedding the cultural restrictions of their childhoods and embracing their full humanity. This documentary revisits those photos, those women and those times and takes aim at our culture today that alarmingly shows the need for continued change.

Unprecedented access to Muhammad Ali's personal archive of "audio journals" as well as interviews and testimonials from his inner circle of family and friends are used to tell the legend's life story.

Filmmaker Christopher Quinn observes the ordeal of three Sudanese refugees -- Jon Bul Dau, Daniel Abul Pach and Panther Bior -- as they try to come to terms with the horrors they experienced in their homeland, while adjusting to their new lives in the United States.

Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.

Life Is But a Dream is a HBO documentary about the life of US singer Beyoncé Knowles during the years 2011 and 2012 and on the recording of her fifth album. The film was directed by Beyoncé herself. The film shows Beyoncé from intimate moments of her pregnancy to behind the scenes and rehearsals of the main concerts of that time.

SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.

A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.

A documentary that resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971.

In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.

Thirty-four days before she's sent to prison, notorious Silicon Valley founder Elizabeth Holmes invites a skeptical film crew to document her every move. What begins as an intimate portrait of an enigmatic felon becomes a mind-bending three-year journey into the abyss.

Giving fans unprecedented access to the real life of the music sensation, Katy Perry: Part of Me exposes the hard work, dedication and phenomenal talent of a girl who remained true to herself and her vision in order to achieve her dreams. Featuring rare behind-the-scenes interviews, personal moments between Katy and her friends, and all-access footage of rehearsals, choreography, Katy’s signature style and more, Katy Perry: Part of Me reveals the singer’s unwavering belief that if you can be yourself, then you can be anything.

An IMAX 3D camera chronicles the effort of 7 astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

Beloved by children of all ages around the world, Elmo is an international icon. Few people know his creator, Kevin Clash, who dreamed of working with his idol, master puppeteer Jim Henson. Displaying his creativity and talent at a young age, Kevin ultimately found a home on Sesame Street. Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, this documentary includes rare archival footage, interviews with Frank Oz, Rosie O’Donnell, Cheryl Henson, Joan Ganz Cooney and others and offers a behind-the-scenes look at Sesame Street and the Jim Henson Workshop.

Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg now 84, and still inspired by the lawyers who defended free speech during the Red Scare, Ginsburg refuses to relinquish her passionate duty, steadily fighting for equal rights for all citizens under the law. Through intimate interviews and unprecedented access to Ginsburg’s life outside the court, RBG tells the electric story of Ginsburg’s consuming love affairs with both the Constitution and her beloved husband Marty—and of a life’s work that led her to become an icon of justice in the highest court in the land.

As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.

In June 2013, Laura Poitras and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her.

In 1999, Internet entrepreneur Josh Harris recruits dozens of young men and women who agree to live in underground apartments for weeks at a time while their every movement is broadcast online. Soon, Harris and his girlfriend embark on their own subterranean adventure, with cameras streaming live footage of their meals, arguments, bedroom activities, and bathroom habits. This documentary explores the role of technology in our lives, as it charts the fragile nature of dot-com economy.

An intimate portrait of Hollywood royalty featuring Debbie Reynolds, Todd Fisher, and Carrie Fisher.

Through interviews with both victims and instigators, Nanfu Wang, a first-time mother, breaks open decades of silence on a vast, unprecedented social experiment that shaped — and destroyed — countless lives in China.
Similar titles
Good Grief is a short stop motion animated documentary that explores the lessons we learn from dealing with grief and loss. Five real people share their true stories of losing something precious and what it has taught them about living.

Kalo (taro) production on each of the major islands of Hawai'i circa 1994. Meet the amazing people who love and continue to cultivate taro on lo'i that in some cases has been in the family for generations and centuries! Young, old, and family growers on Maui, Moloka'i, Hawai'i, O'ahu, and Kaua'i islands. Includes history/culture of kalo, Issues related to land and water, uses of kalo, and prospects for the future.

For several decades, gifted and incredibly prolific forger Mark Landis compulsively created impeccable copies of works by a variety of major artists, donating them to institutions across the country and landing pieces on many of their walls. ART AND CRAFT brings us into the cluttered and insular life of an unforgettable character just as he finds his foil in an equally obsessive art registrar.
A woman reads letters written to her by her imprisoned lover over a seascape. In this dialogue between images and text, absence, expectation and the desire for freedom are expressed.
Farmers alone cannot make our food system thrive - it’s up to all of us. That is the message of this enlightening and encouraging film. The good stewardship efforts being made by farmers, consumers and policy makers in the rapidly growing county of Ventura, California will inspire any community interested in preserving agricultural resources.
The movie revolves around the factory worker figure evolution from post-WWII in Italy, with the emigration from southern to northern regions, the years of economic boom, the strikes, the riots and the infamous march of the 40000 in Turin in 1980.

The '40s and '50s were a classic period in New York City nightlife, when the saloonkeeper was king and regular folks could drink with celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason. In this documentary, Kristi Jacobson profiles her grandfather, the king of kings: Toots Shor of the eponymous restaurant and saloon, which was once the place to be seen in Manhattan. Edward R. Murrow called Toots Shor the owner of America’s greatest saloon. He became the unlikely den-mother to the heroes of America's golden age. Politicians and gangsters, sports heroes and movie stars - Sinatra, Gleason, DiMaggio, Ruth, Costello, Eisenhower, Nixon, Warren - for 30 years, they all found their way to Toots' eponymous saloon on New York's West 51st Street.

The untold tragedy and scandal of what happened to a vibrant community of immigrants from the Cape Verde Islands in the Fox Point section of Providence, Rhode Island who were forcibly displaced by urban renewal to make way for fancy coffee shops, antique stores and elegantly restored houses. Poignant, heartfelt and warm, in a timeless snapshot SKFPR captures the essence, spirit and heart of a community whose history was erased before it was written.

Reporter Clay Pigeon interviews New Yorkers in October, 2008.

When filmmaker Will Lautzenheiser's limbs are amputated, his life is derailed and he turns to stand-up comedy as therapy. Meanwhile, a world-famous medical team is performing transplants that restore bodies to unprecedented levels. Despite grave risks, Will agrees to undergo an experimental double-arm transplant in the hope of reclaiming his independence.

The film follows teenage girls Mairéad Mc Ilkenny and Christine Savage. The two young women live in the same city but at the same time in two different worlds, cut off from each other by high walls that separate people.

This experimental video breaks the many silences surrounding lesbians and AIDS. Interweaving the voices of two friends, Internal Combustion reflects on the often unspoken tensions within this epidemic of survival and power and mourning and loss .
How to combine modernity and fundamentalist Islam. "Saudi Solutions" is a unique and revealing documentary about the lifestyles and attitudes of ambitious career womenin conservative Saudi Arabia - the only country in the Arabworld where women are obliged to cover themselves inabayas and aren't allowed to drive cars. Because of the strong influence of fundamentalist Islam on society, filmingis severely restricted in Saudi Arabia. With unique access to the Kingdom, Backlight had the opportunity to film the daily routines of Saudi working women. This documentaryfeatures a top gyneacologist, a TV news anchor woman, a photographer, and a university professor. It also introducesthe wealthy Prince Al-Waleed, who passionately promotes the acceptance of women into the workforce. He kindly invitesBacklight to his luxury desert camp, but there are no women to be found - only thousands of men.

Filmed in the Inner Mongolian portion of the Gobi Desert, this film follows a group of oil field workers as they go about their daily routine.

An undocumented immigrant explores his and his family's immigration trauma while grasping hope through a voicemail.

Contrary to the public stereotype of a youthful homosexual community, gay men and women do grow old. Silent Pioneers presents an upbeat focus on the lives of these people today, showing them living full and diverse lives and sharing concerns on ageing, health and housing, with other senior citizens. It also considers how support networks within the gay and lesbian community have enriched and strengthened their individual lives.
Documentary film about the official view of art in the Third Reich and state funding of artistic practice.

In the crystal clear waters off the coast of Borneo, a unique way of life threatens to disappear forever. For generations, the Badjao were oceanic nomads, living in harmony with the sea as fishermen and free divers. Nowadays, however, only a few Badjao remain, like Alexan, who still remembers the old ways. He hopes to pass his knowledge along to his ten-year-old nephew Sari, but time and opportunities are running out. Sari loves the sea, but it can only offer a hard life of subsistence fishing, while the nearby tourist resort sings a siren song of easy money.
An intimate look inside the immigrant community in Portland, Maine, as told by Nyamuon Nguany Machar who arrived as refugee in 1995 and David Zwalita Mota who came as an asylum seeker in 2019.

Just one year ago, citizens joined together at Place de la République in Paris to demonstrate against labor reforms, the El Khomri law. This rapidly became an opportunity to invent another way of handling politics. It was the beginning of Nuit Debout. The film follows closely this social movement's inner core, a new kind of citizen's and democratic parliament, without representatives or leaders, which attempts to allow everyone the chance to speak. How do we speak in unison without speaking with a single voice?