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.
Himself
Himself
Himself
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Lingerie--a word that conjures up silk, seduction and sensuality, the items that can create a curve or a mood. Underwear is the first thing to touch you in the morning and the last to touch you at night. Whether or not it's seen by anyone else, what you're wearing next to your skin matters. This sexy documentary shows you who makes these all-important articles, who sells them, and what influences people to buy them.
36 year old welder Karin works at an agricultural factory in Mecklenburg, Germany.
Short documentary on the shunters in the Darling Island, Sydney, Australia railyard. Filmed in 1977.
A more experimental aproach to labor protection films. In the line of Săucan's style, the soundtrack is as important as the image, the threatening music, full of shrillness, composed by Ion Dumitrescu potentiating the visual construction that mixes - in a montage reminiscent of the Soviet avant-garde school of the 1920s - all kinds of shooting techniques and frame combinations.
In 1907, Belgian-born American chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland made one of the most transformative discoveries of the 20th century: Bakelite. It was the first wholly synthetic plastic and ushered in an explosion of new man-made materials that marked the beginnings of our modern industrial age.
You've never heard of Jonathan Hoefler or Tobias Frere-Jones but you've seen their work. They run the most successful and respected type design studio in the world, making fonts used by the Wall Street Journal to the President of the United States.
Examines the mesmerising construction of clear crystal glass pieces created by the craftsmen of Waterford. The process from the intense heat of the furnace to glass blowing, shaping, cutting, honing, filling and finishing is all depicted in this celebration of the art of creation of Waterford Glass. Academy Award Nominee: Best Live Action Short - 1976.
This French-Canadian co-production goes behind the scenes of the huge tobacco industry, whose economic power has been expanding for five decades at the expense of public health. A gripping investigation covering three continents, Nadia Collot's film exposes the vast conspiracy of a criminally negligent industry that conquers new markets through corruption and manipulation. To confront the tobacco cartel, anti-smoking groups are organizing and scoring points, but the fight remains fierce. With ist diverse viewpoints, shocking interviews and riveting images, The Tobacco Conspiracy deftly defines the issues in a complex situation where private interests and the public good collide. Enlightening and engrossing, this documentary is a hard-hitting critique of an industry gone mad.
Common sense says you can't make a living in America playing avant-garde improvisational jazz. But Ken Vandermark does it anyway. Among musicians, Vandermark's work ethic is almost mythic. The Chicago reed player has released over 100 albums with nearly 40 ensembles, spends over eight months per year on the road, and lives every other waking moment composing, arranging, performing—and trying to discipline his two hyperactive canines. Though Vandermark was the recipient of a 1999 MacArthur genius grant, he still spends most of his life in smoky clubs and low-budget recording studios, hoping people will plunk down hard-earned cash to hear his wholly non-commercial music. Following the artful cinéma vérité style of the internationally acclaimed Sheriff (Work Series #1), Musician (Work Series #2) forgoes all interviews and voice-overs. It is a fly-on-the-wall time capsule that expertly captures every subtle sound and texture of this most American of art forms.
Documentary about shipbuilding on the Clyde. In 1960, Glasgow and other towns and ports on the River Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland, were still one of the world's great centres of shipbuilding. The film gives an idea of the business of building a ship - the largest moving thing made by man - from the naval architects who design her to the workmen, the shipbuilders in the yard, through to a ship's launching.
This short documentary features Newfoundland fisherman Billy Crane, who speaks frankly on the state of the inshore fishery and how the lack of government support has contributed to the industry’s downfall. He is being forced to leave home to seek employment in Toronto. This film was made with the Challenge for Change program.
The invention and use of a jeep are described, from the viewpoint of one of the vehicles.
A Canadian union and workers in a GM plant mobilize to save it in what will become the fight of their lives.
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.
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.
A film about fireworks, the people who make them and the cultures behind them across the globe.
"Fim do Sem Fim" is a feature-length documentary that has as its backdrop the imminent disappearance of certain trades and professions in Brazil. Shot in 10 Brazilian states, the film is a dive into the inventiveness and resistance of men in the face of technological and cultural changes.
It's 1948 and hydro-electric power is transforming Scotland's Grampians.
An engineering feat: Second city civil engineers complete a new bridge to carry traffic over New Street's tangled railway intersections.