Richelieu

The Promised Land

February 1975 •Polish

In nineteenth-century Łódź, Poland, three friends want to make a lot of money by building and investing in a textile factory. An exceptional portrait of rapid industrial expansion is shown through the eyes of one Polish town.

Forest Giant

September 2020 •Finnish

Pasi returns to his childhood town, asked to reconfigure the local plywood factory. With a child on the way with his upper-class wife, Pasi sees an opportunity – this is his ticket to climb the professional ladder in the company. On arrival, he bumps into his childhood friend Janne, who works in the factory he is about to downsize. Pasi begins to struggle with the fact that he is supposed to care for the profits – not for the people.

Another Promise

February 2014 •Korean

Taxi driver Sang-gu is an ordinary father who has made a happy family. Due to their unfortunate financial circumstances, he is sorry that he cannot afford to send his daughter Yoon-mi to university like other parents. Yet, with a bright smile on her face, Yoon-mi tells her father that she will one day buy him a new car and pay college tuition fees for her younger sibling. However, less than two years after Yoon-mi begins her job at a large corporate company, she gets seriously ill and returns home. Sang-gu is heartbroken to see his young daughter in such a condition.

The Match Factory Girl

January 1990 •Finnish

Iris is a shy and dowdy young woman stuck in a dead-end job at a match factory, who dreams of finding love at the local dancehall. Finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand and abandoned by the father, Iris finally decides the time has come to get even and she begins to plot her revenge.

The Swindlers

September 1959 •Italian

Mario is in Hannover to work as a miner but after losing his job he decides to go back to Italy. When Totonno steals his passport to avoid the police and later on he offers him a new job as "magliaro" (cloth seller), Mario changes his mind and decides to follow Totonno to Hamburg. In Hamburg, Totonno and his friends have to sell Mayer's cloth, but they meet with the hostility of a Polish gang and Mario falls in love with Paula Mayer.

Making Of

January 2024 •French

Simon, a well-known French filmmaker, starts shooting his next film. A story about workers fighting to protect their factory from being relocated. But nothing goes as planned... His producer Viviane wants to rewrite the ending and is threatening to cut the budget; his own crew goes on strike; his personal life is in shambles; and to make things worse, his lead actor Alain is an egocentric jerk. Joseph, an extra who wants to get into the film industry, agrees to direct the making of and shoot the behind-the-scenes. He takes his role very seriously and starts following around the crew, capturing all this mess... What follows is proof that the making of can sometimes be far better than the film itself!

Ariel

October 1988 •Finnish

A Finnish man goes to the city to find a job after the mine where he worked is closed and his father commits suicide.

Dancer in the Dark

September 2000 •English

Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, escaping life's troubles – even if just for a moment – by dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.

The Secret Life of Words

December 2005 •English

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

Gung Ho

March 1986 •English

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.

Bootmen

October 2000 •English

Sean Odkin loves to dance—much to his fathers distain. When the woman he loves cannot return his love, he goes in search of the only thing that can make him whole again—dancing.

Kinky Boots

August 2005 •English

Charles Price may have grown up with his father in the family shoe business in Northampton, central England, but he never thought that he would take his father's place. Charles has a chance encounter with the flamboyant drag queen cabaret singer Lola and everything changes.

Matewan

August 1987 •English

Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan, a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan's vested interests so that justice and workers' rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.

The Navigators

September 2001 •English

In South Yorkshire, a small group of railway maintenance men discover that because of privatization, their lives will never be the same. When the trusty British Rail sign is replaced by one reading East Midland Infrastructure, it is clear that there will be the inevitable winners and losers as downsizing and efficiency become the new buzzwords.

Loves of a Blonde

November 1965 •Czech

Andula, an innocent Czech girl from a factory town, is desperately in search of love. She believes she's found it when she beds Milda, a charming young musician visiting from Prague. Milda, however, is only looking for a casual encounter, and leaves town assuming he'll never see Andula again. But when Andula doesn't hear from him, she packs up and heads to Prague, to the surprise of Milda and his parents.

Velaikkaran

December 2017 •Tamil

An enterprising youngster in a slum wants his people to lead a life of dignity, but has to take on an ambitious capitalist, who only wants to dominate his field.

Blue Collar

February 1978 •English

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.

Esta tierra es mía

November 1961 •Spanish

The life of the cotton workers in the Chaco and its struggle for wages.

Possessed

November 1931 •English

Marion is a factory worker who hopes to trade the assembly line for a beautiful penthouse apartment. Mark Whitney, a wealthy and influential lawyer, can make her dreams come true, but, there is only one problem; he will give her everything except a marriage proposal. Will this affair ever lead to marriage?

Travail forcé, le SOS d'un prisonnier chinois

November 2023 •French