Salt of the Earth is a 1954 American drama film written by Michael Wilson, directed by Herbert J. Biberman, and produced by Paul Jarrico. All had been blacklisted by the Hollywood establishment due to their alleged involvement in communist politics.

This drama film is one of the first pictures to advance the feminist social and political point of view. Its plot centers on a long and difficult strike, based on the 1951 strike against the Empire Zinc Company in Grant County, New Mexico. In the film, the company is identified as "Delaware Zinc," and the setting is "Zinctown, New Mexico." The film shows how the miners, the company, and the police react during the strike. In neorealist style, the producers and director used actual miners and their families as actors in the film.

Director: Herbert J. Biberman

Starring: Will Geer, David Wolfe

Genre: Drama/ History

Country: USA

Runtime: 94min.

Richard Peña (Professor of Film, Columbia University School of the Arts, Director Emeritus of the New York Film Festival)

Professor of Professional Practice in the Film Department at Columbia University, Former Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Director Emeritus of the New York Film Festival.

Richard Peña founded the MA program in Film Studies: History, Theory and Criticism (HTC) at Columbia University.

For 25 years, from 1988 to 2012, Peña served as the Director of the New York Film Festival and now he is its Director Emeritus. At the Film Society of Lincoln Center, where Peña served as Program Director, Peña organized retrospectives of Michelangelo Antonioni, Sacha Guitry, Abbas Kiarostami, Robert Aldrich, Gabriel Figueroa, Ritwik Ghatak, Youssef Chahine, and other film directors as well as major film series devoted to African, Cuban, Polish, Hungarian, Arab, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Argentine, and Chinese cinema.