Get By

GET BY (2013) follows two recycling workers, Stanley McPherson and Milton Webb, as they bring their struggle for a living wage to the legislature, media, and the streets of Ithaca, New York. An exploration of precarity, worker-community solidarity and urban democracy, the film raises key questions about the public value of increasingly privatized work, and the challenges of organizing across divides of race and class.

  • Emily Hong
    Director
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Genres:
    ethnographic film, documentary
  • Runtime:
    28 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    December 12, 2013
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes
  • Sub-basement Cinema
    Cornell Cinema, Ithaca, NY
    December 15, 2013
  • The Right to the City in an Era of Austerity
    Paris, France
    May 30, 2014
  • Workers Unite Film Festival
    New York, NY
    May 8, 2015
Director Biography - Emily Hong

Emily Hong is Seoul-born and New York-raised feminist anthropologist, media maker, and trainer, currently pursuing a PhD at Cornell University. Her research, media projects, and activist engagements largely focus on Thailand and Burma, where she has spent half a decade working as a trainer with minority rights activists, and as a campaigner for Burma’s democracy movement-in-exile. Recent media projects include the ethnographic film Get By (2013), video installation Performing Modernity (2014), multimedia piece Indigenous Futures and Urban Natures (2015) and experimental short Nobel, Nok, Dah (in production).

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