California Company Town

Lee Anne Schmitt explores California's landscape and past to document the history of one-time boom towns built and abandoned by the industries that necessitated their creation. Sold as a limitless land expansive with free opportunity, California was actually, from its onset, fissured by the interwoven needs of private and public interests. Schmitt's film covers various locations through time, as the major industries of the early 20th century (mining, lumber, oil) give way to the military, eventually leading to multinational corporations, and the use of small towns as satellites for growing urban metropolises.

Why Plastic: Coca Cola/American Plastic

Whales beached after ingesting plastic, oceans soiled: a quarter of marine waste today comes from cans and plastic bottles. The drinks industry produces 470 billion single-use bottles each year, 25% of which come from Coca-Cola. Although the world's largest soft drink producer has set ambitious targets to prevent this environmental pollution, it has often failed to do so. In the 1950s, the company sold its drink exclusively in returnable glass bottles, which it washed and refilled. Two decades later, these were replaced by disposable bottles - a decision whose devastating effects still linger.

Hmoty zítřka

La zuppa del demonio

Spotlight on the Highlands

It's 1948 and hydro-electric power is transforming Scotland's Grampians.

Det er godt at have sin egen konto

Hollywood's Greatest Trick

The video is accompanied by a richly detailed article that adds more depth to the documentary. If there’s any question about why Hollywood is dead set against the unionization of vfx artists, the following graphic from the article will answer the question: vfx artists comprise the biggest portion of the crew on most Hollywood blockbusters.

Manufactured Landscapes

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.

The Cost of Cobalt

In the cobalt mining areas of Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), babies are being born with horrific birth defects. Scientists and doctors are finding increasing evidence of environmental pollution from industrial mining which, they believe, may be the cause of a range of malformations from cleft palate to some so serious the baby is stillborn. More than 60% of the world’s reserves of cobalt are in the DRC and this mineral is essential for the production of electric car batteries, which may be the key to reducing carbon emissions and to slowing climate change. In The Cost of Cobalt we meet the doctors treating the children affected and the scientists who are measuring the pollution. Cobalt may be part of the global solution to climate change, but is it right that Congo’s next generation pay the price with their health? Many are hoping that the more the world understands their plight, the more pressure will be put on the industry here to clean up its act.

The Voice Beneath the Sea

A documentary about the laying of the first transatlantic telephone line.

With These Hands: The Story of an American Furniture Factory

In 2007, unable to compete with cheaper offshore production, Hooker Furniture Co. closed its plant in Martinsville, Virginia, after 83 years in operation. With These Hands follows the last load of wood down the assembly line as it is cut, honed, and assembled into fine furniture. Along the way, employees at the factory share their perspectives on work, community, and survival in a country devastated by de-industrialization and outsourcing.

Endless Letterpress

Facing deteriorating machines and the advance of new technologies, Argentine printing presses are closing up their shops. A group of young designers has rediscovered this great technical innovation in the history of the written word – the typesetting printing press – but the technique is difficult to learn, passed down from master to apprentice. The last press mechanic in the country will be in charge of teaching them so that this historic technique endures.

Frå solside til skuggeland? -Industristaden Ålvik i Hardanger

This is a documentary that tells about the history of Ålvik as an industrial town. It is the story of the water on the mountain that was tamed into electric power, and was the foundation of Bjølvefossen. The film tells about Trallebanen, one of the most unique cultural heritage sites in Hardanger. Should it be preserved?

Steel - Variations on a Theme

Classic British Cars: Made in Coventry

Find out how the cars were crafted and discover the secret family stories behind the most famous marques including Riley, Standard, Triumph and Jaguar. Legendary racers Rosemary Smith, Pat Quinn and Norman Dewis share their memories of competing Coventry’s cars in some of the world’s most dangerous motorsport events. And, meet the people passionate about preserving the city’s extraordinary motoring heritage.

Japan Inc: Lessons for North America?

Discipline and productivity are more regimented in Japan than in many other parts of the world. For the Japanese, survival means doing things together rather than asserting North-American-style individualism. Japan's industry has automated and computerized at an unparalleled rate. Open-concept offices and collaborative work styles offer a model of the changing style of modern work that could inspire the West to modify their processes as well.

Québec...?

This short documentary film is a fascinating portrait of urban and rural Quebec in the late 1960s, as the province entered modernity. The collective work produced for the Quebec Ministry of Industry and Commerce calls on several major Quebec figures.

Jobs for All!

A highly choreographed review of the Industrial Age as we know it today – an intense and playful roller coaster ride that demands the viewer confronts how “work works.” Culled entirely from archival footage, the film unfolds in the filmmakers’ trademark, and humorously critical, cinematic voices.

Valley Town: A Study of Machines and Men

A documentary examining the effects of industrial automation on a small American town.

Shift

SCHICHT (SHIFT) is both a reckoning and a search for traces of the past. Layer by layer the film unfolds the portrait of the filmmaker's family - brought to life by records from private archives - and embarks on a dizzying trip through the shrinking industrial city of Salzgitter, Germany.