Intended as a publicity film for Chrysler, Rhythm uses rapid editing to speed up the assembly of a car, synchronizing it to African drum music. The sponsor was horrified by the music and suspicious of the way a worker was shown winking at the camera; although Rhythm won first prize at a New York advertising festival, it was disqualified because Chrysler had never given it a television screening. P. Adams Sitney wrote, “Although his reputation has been sustained by the invention of direct painting on film, Lye deserves equal credit as one of the great masters of montage.” And in Film Culture, Jonas Mekas said to Peter Kubelka, “Have you seen Len Lye’s 50-second automobile commercial? Nothing happens there…except that it’s filled with some kind of secret action of cinema.” - Harvard Film Archive
Ever since it was revealed that the chocolate industry is involved with child slavery in the Ivory Coast, the industry has been busy – due to consumer demands – explaining what exactly it does to actively fight trafficking and child labour. But does the industry live up to its own promises?In this investigative film, director Miki Mistrati tries to find out, if the chocolate industry – which is one of the largest corporations in the world – speak the truth, when they say that they provide education, medical care etc for the children of the Ivory Coast. But the project runs into trouble already from the get-go, because the embassy of the Ivory Coast won’t let Miki enter the country until he has an invitation – from the chocolate industry.
A camera moving forward on an overhead crane gives a traveling view of men working on machinery. Carts carrying parts and pieces of machinery pass by on rails; cranes lift machinery; and men perform their various duties, including hammering objects. (Library of Congress)
This film is part of the Mitchell and Kenyon collection - an amazing visual record of everyday life in Britain at the beginning of the twentieth century.
A camera on an overhead crane travels down a large, long aisle where men are shown working on large machinery on either side. Carts carrying equipment are shown traveling on rails down the aisles. There are also men walking in the aisles. From Bitzer's Westinghouse Works series.
In Portugal, the daily life of a bronze foundry, specialized in the semi-industrial production of spare parts for the naval field, is compared with the freedom of spirit characterizing the "pottery of monsters" on a village square where everyone gathers.
The Year of Return is an initiative of the government of Ghana that is intended to encourage African diasporans to come to Africa to settle and invest in the continent. This film documents one diasporan family as they return to Africa.
A cinema verite study of the world of the blue-collar worker and the economic and psychological bind in which he is caught.
Chronicle of the 9-week strike by the kaolin workers of Plémet. The film emphasizes the particular nature of such a strike in a rural commune and in a sector of the old Breton proletariat: that of subsoil mining, almost entirely liquidated after the closure of the Hennebont forges.
The new cycling documentary, in full length.
Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Evan Schmitt is back with his third film about bicycle racing. Set in the year 2008, Schmitt takes you on a journey to meet the people and places in these unique sporting events; three different races in 3 different worlds. The Cascade Classic, The FSA Grand Prix and the Single Speed Cyclocross World Championships. Follow behind Tour de France stage winner Levi Leipheimer in a time trial, talk to Olympic and world champion Kristin Armstrong and more! Shot in digital video in the actual locations around the world.
While working as a photographer in Benin, West Africa, a two-week trip will turn into a two months personal journey. Me dicen Yovo (I'm a Yovo) is a visual diary of that experience. A Peruvian traveller is an odd presence in Benin whose ethnic a cultural identities are constantly creating unique situations, and provoking original thoughts on what it means to be from the "third world".
The story of the factory worker Pietro Perotti, who worked at Fiat Mirafiori from 1969 to 1985 and participated in the workers’ protests by overseeing communications inside the factory, making stickers, wall posters, texts and drawings in the bathrooms, figures out of papier-mâché and foam rubber, and turning the protest marches into “street theatre.” With his movie camera, Perotti immortalized the situations and workers’ protests at Mirafiori until 1974. Thanks to this unpublished material, the movie paints a fresco of factory life in what used to be Europe’s biggest metalworking factory.