Enterprise: A Documentary Film(1948)

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory(fr)

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.

The Other Half Of The Sky(zh)

They are four of the most successful businesswomen in China: Belonging to a generation who experienced the austerity of China's cultural revolution, followed by the subsequent economic boom, they have worked their way to the very top in a patriarchal society. Today, Yang Lan is the owner of one of the leading private media companies. Dong Mingzhu is a tenacious female CEO, heading up the world's largest manufacturer of air conditioning systems. Zhang Lan is a tycoon in the luxury restaurant business. Zhou Yi is a top manager working for a big american IT company. How were these careers built? What are the social and economic contexts in which they operate? And what do these women think about the political, social and cultural state of their country?

Megacities(en)

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

The Tobacco Conspiracy: The Backroom Deals of a Deadly Industry(en)

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.

Television(en)

Promotes television sets and the broadcast of New York's first regularly scheduled programs by providing a clinical look at the inner workings of television, including the manufacture of the tubes, lab experiments, and an actual telecast. Shows RCA's production studios in Rockefeller Center, television demonstrations at the 1939–40 New York World's Fair, RCA's Empire State Building transmitter, and remote mobile broadcast units. One of a variety of "Reelisms" shorts produced by Frederic Ullman Jr. and Frank Donovan for RKO in the late 1930s.

Lingerie: The Industry Exposed(en)

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.

Cotton Mill, Treadmill(fr)

Director Denys Arcand made an inquiry on textile industry in Quebec, meeting employers and workers of that industry.

The Corporation(en)

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.

North China Factory(en)

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.

High Tide in Newfoundland(en)

The Business of America(en)

An exploration of supply side economics and the trickle down myth as exemplified by Pittsburgh's declining steel industry.

Atlas(en)

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.

Machines(hi)

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.

Hollywood's Greatest Trick(en)

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.

The Luddites(en)

In 1812 there were violent disturbances in Yorkshire when new machines were introduced into the wool industry. This film is an interpretation of those events made in the style of a documentary.

Manufactured Landscapes(en)

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.

Robin Schulz - The Movie(de)

Where the Stone Dropped(en)

Created in the Victorian era to widen the mouth of the River Tees for shipping, South Gare is a man-made peninsula extending four kilometres into the cold North Sea. Today, the industry it was built for has gone, but the Gare remains as a haven for all sorts of unexpected communities - kite-surfers, photographers, bird-watchers, scuba-divers and the people who simply appreciate its strange, lonely beauty.

Charlie Marx and the Chocolate Factory(en)

Charlie Marx and the Chocolate Factory started as an investigation of the link between politics and chocolate, at the Karl Marx Confectionary Factory in Kiev, Ukraine. Since access to the factory was denied, the project had to be re-considered, re-invented or re-enacted. Mostly made of archival footage and re-enacted performances based on the company's website, the film merges what was left of the initial idea with what has been collected and realized instead. It borrows from the genres of video art, 'Man on the street' interview, direct address, corporate film, essay, and music video, without legitimately belonging to any of them. The film unravels as a reflection on its own failure, and yet keeps on investigating what has always been at stake: the shift from public to private property (and from analog to digital technology), dialectics of permanence and change, language as a mirror of ideology, and post-Soviet oligarchy culture.

Mountain Spring: The Flinders Range(en)

Progress in South Australia manifests itself around the Flinders Range country in the industries of Whyalla, Port Pirie, Port Augusta, Leigh Creek and Aroona Dam. Wildflowers cover the countryside.