The Factory: How a Product is Made

Court Case

January 1978 •English

An insider's look on the making of Penn's tennis balls, from their creation in a factory to the final stages of quality control.

Machines

November 2017 •Hindi

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.

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory

March 1895 •French

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.

Nallar och människor

March 1989 •English

A group of teddybears awaken in the attic after years of storage. Store-Nalle (Big Teddy) explains the history of the species, from the very first teddybears manufactured in Germany. Other segments include dramatizations of the directors' childhood memories, as well as interviews with several stuffed animal owners.

Le Monde secret de la petite brique LEGO

February 2017 •French

Atlas

December 1931 •English

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.

Megacities

August 1998 •English

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

Barbie Nation: An Unauthorized Tour

July 1998 •English

Blows the roof of Barbie’s “Dreamhouse,” revealing generations of people obsessed with the world’s most popular toy. At Barbie conventions and anti-Barbie demonstrations, from San Francisco’s gay pride parade to Croatia’s bunkers, Barbie fans, foes, fetishists – and Barbie’s creator Ruth Handler – reveal the history and fantasy behind the icon.

Charlie Marx and the Chocolate Factory

January 2009 •English

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.

S.A.L.P. Esercizio di memoria

March 2012 •Italian

A documentary about the industrial, urbanistic and social aspects of the Società Anonima Lavorazione Pelli (S.A.L.P) factory located in Rivarolo Canavese, thirty kilometers north of Turin.

Turtle Power: The Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

August 2014 •English

In the spring of 1984, a strange new comic book sat beside cash registers in select shops, too big to fit in the racks, and too weird to ignore. Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles presented a completely original breed of super hero. It was too bizarre, too crazy. It broke all the rules and should never have worked. Until it sold out. Again and again and again. For 30 years. Now, peek under the shell and see how this so-called "happy accident" defied every naysayer to become one of the most popular and beloved franchises in the world.

24 City

September 2008 •Chinese

As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.

I Am a Truck

January 1953 •Korean

Worldy renowned for his masterpiece The Housemaid (1960), Kim Ki-young debuts with his first short film I Am a Truck (1953), which was sponsored by UN and made a year after the armistice of the Korean War. This film is a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a soon-to-be powerful auteur and influential filmmaker in the post-war Korean cinema, if not the whole history of Korean cinema.

IEC Long

March 2015 •Portuguese

The word panchão was first heard in Macao. From the Chinese pan-tcheong or pau-tcheong, dictionaries define it as a Macanese regionalism also known as China cracker. Who inhabits the ancient IEC Long firecracker factory?

Dernière Tribune

August 2024 •French

Manufactured Landscapes

September 2006 •English

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.

Monster im Kinderzimmer

Invalid date •German

Ho Chi Minh Kim Chi

November 2016 •English

The sights and sounds of a kimchi factory in Vietnam.

Making of: Pirelli Tyres

November 2019 •German

Secrets of the Christmas Factory

Invalid date •English

Take a closer look behind the processes of six different traditional Christmas items: Christmas Trees, Brussel Sprouts, Chocolate, Tinsel, Christmas Jumpers and Christmas Puddings!