Nous irons jusqu'au bout (les Kaolins de Plemet)

Megacities

August 1998 •English

Megacities is a documentary about the slums of five different metropolitan cities.

Railway Station

January 1980 •Polish

Kieslowski’s later film Dworzec (Station, 1980) portrays the atmosphere at Central Station in Warsaw after the rush hour.

Whose Utopia

July 2006 •Chinese

A three-part film by Cao Fei. Part one, 'Imagination of Product', shows workers and machines at the OSRAM lightbulb factory in China's Pearl River Delta. In the second part, 'Factory Fairytale', dancers and musicians appear in the factory, as work continues around them. Finally, 'My Future is Not a Dream' consists of portraits of the factory workers facing Fei's camera.

Kainai

January 1973 •English

On the Kainai (Blood) First Nations Reserve, near Cardston, Alberta, a hopeful new development in Indigenous enterprise. Once rulers of the western plains, the Bloods live on a 1 300-square-kilometer reserve. Many have lacked gainful employment and now pin their hopes on a pre-fab factory they have built. Will the production line and work and wages fit into their cultural pattern of life? The film shows how it is working and what the owners themselves say about their venture.

The Flickering Flame

December 1996 •English

Documentary following dockers of Liverpool sacked in a labour dispute and their supporters’ group, Women of the Waterfront, as they receive support from around the world and seek solidarity at the TUC conference.

L'Homme-cochon, 20 ans plus tard

January 2000 •French

Jean-Louis Le Tacon finds Maxime Duchemin in the ruins of his pig farm, devoured by brambles and nettles. Twenty years later, what has become of his life?

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory

March 1895 •French

Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.

L'autre mai, Nantes mai 68

January 2008 •French

Atlas

December 1931 •English

The concept of machine-made knit was known as early as the 1850s, but it was only during the 1920s that the quality of the material had improved. When the plant known as "Atlas" was introduced in 1931, the shop windows drew a lot of attention, and Aho & Soldan was ordered to make a promotional film. In this well-paced film, we see the jersey production step by step.

Strike! The Women Who Fought Back

March 2024 •English

In their own words, this is the story of six women from the South Wales valleys and how they helped sustain the bitter year-long miners' strike, changing their lives forever.

Machines

November 2017 •Hindi

This portrayal of the rhythm of life and work in a gigantic textile factory in Gujarat, India, moves through the corridors and bowels of the enormously disorienting structure—taking the viewer on a journey of dehumanizing physical labor and intense hardship.

Song of Armorica

April 2016 •French

A poetic drama, spoken in the Breton language and set in a Breton fishing community, telling of the impossible love between a waifish fisherman and a highborn lady-of-the-manor.

North China Factory

January 1980 •English

This documentary from 1980 depicts a factory community in China where over 6000 workers process, spin and weave raw cotton into 90 million yards of high-quality cloth per year. Also seen are the workers' residential, social, recreational and educational facilities, all located on factory property. The film presents an engrossing study of a lifestyle that is very different from that of the Western world.

Manufactured Landscapes

September 2006 •English

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris.

Look Back at Grunwick

January 1980 •English

A RECORD OF THE STRIKE AT GRUNWICK IN 1977. The story of the continuing struggle at Grunwick’s by mainly Indian workers, from July 11th, 1977 until the struggle was lost. It shows the Special Patrol Group attack on the November 7th day of action, how the leadership of the struggle was taken out of the hands of the strike committee, how some of the strike leaders were disciplined by their own union for going on hunger strike outside the TUC in protest at the TUC’s inactivity, and how the post office workers were forced by their union to end their blacking of Grunwick mail. It also shows the beginnings of the similar struggle by immigrant workers at Garner’s Steak Houses in London.

Stand Together!

July 1977 •English

'Stand together!', a film on the "mass day of solidarity" on 11 July 1977, was made in 1977 for the Grunwick Strike Committee by the Newsreel Collective, of which Chris Thomas was a member, and members of the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians (ACTT) and the Transport and General Workers' Union.

Miners Shot Down

May 2014 •English

In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days later the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. Using the point of view of the Marikana miners, Miners Shot Down follows the strike from day one, showing the courageous but isolated fight waged by a group of low-paid workers against the combined forces of the mining company Lonmin, the ANC government and their allies in the National Union of Mineworkers.

Harlan County U.S.A.

January 1977 •English

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastovers refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.

Unity SPD – KPD

May 1946 •German

Documentary about the merging of the Communist Party of Germany and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in the Soviet occupation zone, a merger that would lead to the creation of the Socialist Unity Party that would rule the soon-to-be-created East Germany until 1989.

24 City

September 2008 •Chinese

As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.