2019
A mix of Rock and Roll and Blues are the secret for successful rebellion. When I took my camera to the middle of France where the GM&S factory was threatened by a permanent shut down, I felt like something extraordinary was about to take place. And it did. The lyrics were written by workers who have had enough! The tune was composed by people not afraid to go against even the rules of revolt! The volume was loud enough to attract the media. Their working-class concert spread across France like wild fire. I sat out of sight, camera in hand, filming like catching fish in a barrel.
1968
An analysis of the social upheaval of May 1968, made in the immediate wake of the workers’ and students’ protests. The picture consists of two parts, each with with identical image tracks, and differing narration.
1999
The Renault factory in Belgium must close down. Nobody can believe it. We follow the investigations by the director who is at the heart of the action and who interviews main politicians, the workers who violently protest and the direction. In the fiction part the president-director of Renault, Schweitzer is killed by one of the workers.
1970
Jean-Luc Godard brings his firebrand political cinema to the UK, exploring the revolutionary signals in late '60s British society. Constructed as a montage of various disconnected political acts (in line with Godard's then appropriation of Soviet director Dziga Vertov's agitprop techniques), it combines a diverse range of footage, from students discussing The Beatles to the production line at the MG factory in Oxfordshire, burnished with onscreen political sloganeering.
2015
David Gelb (Jiro Dreams of Sushi) tackles another venerable, beloved, and long-standing institution: the Mustang, crown jewel of the Ford fleet. Only this institution is in turmoil. As the fiftieth anniversary of the Mustang approaches and the car industry struggles through the deepest trough of the financial crisis, Ford launches a redesign. Now the jobs of workers at Ford’s Flat Rock Assembly Plant, the expectations of the thousands of Mustang devotees, and the livelihood of the city of Detroit are all placed squarely on the shoulders of Dave Pericak. As chief program engineer, he will guide the 2015 Mustang from assembly floor to showroom—if only he can get that vibration out of the steering wheel.
2002
High Performance Imports checks out Tokyo Auto Salon 2002, tours Mine's factory and demonstrates drift action from Mitsui Mike plus an update on the HPI project car tuning.
1957
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
1978
Fed up with mistreatment at the hands of both management and union brass, and coupled with financial hardships on each man's end, three auto assembly line workers hatch a plan to rob a safe at union headquarters.
1986
When a western Pennsylvania auto plant is acquired by a Japanese company, brokering auto worker Hunt Stevenson faces the tricky challenge of mediating the assimilation of two clashing corporate cultures. At one end is the Japanese plant manager and the sycophant who is angling for his position. At the other, a number of disgruntled long-time union members struggle with the new exigencies of Japanese quality control.
2010
The people of the Mafrouza shantytown in Alexandria daily reconstruct themselves and the world around them, but they also question the camera, who answers them and thus becomes a character in the film.
2013
Does gloomy fascination that surrounds serial killers tell us something important about ourselves? The figure of Joachim Knychala, who murdered five women between 1975 and 1982, is used to focus our attention on those whose lives were marked by the infamous 'vampire from Bytom'. Among them there is a former journalist, Edward Kozak, who, despite his old age, admits he has a variety of obsessions. The film about the 'vampire' offers him an opportunity to enter the limelight one more time.
1994
Perry J. Watkins was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1968 and served 15 years reaching the rank of sergeant. He was also openly gay, even to the point of doing drag shows on base. He was discharged in 1982 but fought for reinstatement and the United States Supreme Court ruled in his favor. This is his story.
