Working the Boats: Masters of the Craft

SPIA Media Productions Inc. is pleased to announce the Providence premiere of Working the Boats: Masters of the Craft, a winner of a prestigious 2017 RISCA Fellowship in Film &; Video. The second in a documentary trilogy about the Fox Point Cape Verdean community, Working the Boats: Masters of the Craft is a six-part webisode that captures the golden years of Local 1329 of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA).

Local 1329 was founded in Providence, Rhode Island in 1933 by Manuel Q. Ledo, a Cape Verdean community leader, Local 1329 of the I.L.A. (the International Longshoremen’s Association) was the first predominantly Cape Verdean labor union in New England.

Our Rhode: Commemorating the Fox Point Cape Verdean Community, a companion installation to Working the Boats: Masters of the Craft, is currently on exhibit through July 31 at the Providence Public Library, 150 Empire St., Providence, RI.

The Providence premiere is made possible with the generous support of the Department of Art, Culture + Tourism City of Providence, Jorge Elorza, Mayor; a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts; and Emerson College. Funders for this project include the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, an independent state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.