Somewhere in Myanmar is a forest rich in amber and controlled by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). Most of its inhabitants work in a mine, digging the earth night and days in the hope of finding the precious ore that will get them out of poverty. But on top of the excruciating hardship of the work, they also have to fear an attack from the army.
AGNI, a visual artist in the twilight of his life, is rushing to complete his monumental work. Caught up in a frantic creative routine despite his declining health, he transforms every gesture, every moment into a final trace of his passage. Soon, he knows, he will join the stars.
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.
The oldest Quebecois Benedictine convent open its gates to a documentary filmmaker for the first time. Observed up close, life behind its walls is busier than one would expect. About twenty cloistered nuns, most of them over 70, share their daily life with diligence and humor. A contemplative portrait of a community of sisterhood and solidarity emerges, punctuated by prayer, work and games evenings.
A documentary following 12-year-old Paul and his brother Germain during a transformative summer in rural France. The film explores the loss of innocence as Paul confronts the harsh financial and physical realities of his family's farming livelihood, highlighting the father-son bond and an uncertain future.
La Meilleure Façon de tracer
TIME TO DIE
Workplace is a documentary made by Gary Hustwit, in association with R/GA, for the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale.Workplace is about the past, present, and future of the office. It looks at the thinking, innovation, and experimentation involved in trying to create the next evolution of what the office could be. The film follows the design and construction of the New York headquarters of digital agency R/GA (in collaboration with architects Foster + Partners) who have been experimenting with how physical and digital space can better interact. Digital technology has radically changed how and where most of us work, but the physical spaces we work in haven’t kept up with that transformation.
A Associação
Claude Lelouch was a Jewish child in occupied France. In this documentary, he talks about the trauma he still feels from that experience, but also how it inspired him to become a filmmaker. The 1940s appear to be a formative period, key to understanding the work and career of this famous director, whose films and life have always been inseparable.
Stylized with dramatic interiors and a distorted frame rate, this early documentary miniature from Szulkin depicts six sequences of solitary, repetitious labor.
NOCH ACHT STUNDEN
A Sense of Justice, immerses us In a law firm in this same city. There, we can find Christine Mengus and Nohra Boukara, specialized in the rights of foreigners, supported by Audrey Scarinoff and their co-workers.. Stories from their sad, appalling or tragicomic cases alternate with their daily legal work. And as we hear snatches of consultations involving illegal entry or departure, deportation orders, the right to reside or medical assistance, we become witnesses to predictable tragedies, to the administrative or social precariousness induced by such predicaments, and to whole lives depending on court rulings.
At the beginning of the 70s, Sahia Studio produced a number of social investigations commissioned by the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party, intended to expose the so-called "social parasitism". The decision was taken after the theses of July 1971, which provide that "one of the main objectives of political work, especially among the youth, is the firm fight against the tendencies of parasitism, of an easy life, without work, the cultivation of responsibility and the duty to work , in the service of the country, the people, the socialist society". The most famous films, made with the competition of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice, are Să treacă vara and Iarna unor pierde vară
Women from Turkey and Mecklenburg are working together side-by-side at a fish-processing factory in Lübeck. As they work, they share stories about their lives, including their sorrows, griefs, hopes, and dreams, while expressing their longing for home and feelings of being lost in a foreign place.
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.
A documentary about one night at Alexander Theatre in Helsinki. Staff prepares for 300 guests, serves them and closes this historically significant building for the night.
Immigrant workers build a shopping mall for the upcoming 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. In 2016, nine people with migrant backgrounds are killed in a racist attack at the same mall.
In Work A Lot, Memphis Depay steps off the pitch and into the daily lives of the people who keep São Paulo moving. The mini-documentary weaves interviews with Brazilian workers — from street vendors to truck drivers, from bakers to hairdressers — with behind-the-scenes moments of Depay’s own life in Brazil, spanning music, football, and visits to local communities. Stripped of glamour and filters, the film connects different realities through a shared truth: working hard isn’t a lifestyle choice, it’s survival. A raw, urban and honest portrait of daily struggle, belonging, and real life.
While everyone wants to die "at home" without suffering and surrounded by loved ones, in reality almost everyone dies in hospital. What healthcare provisions enable people to die at home? Are we all equal in terms of the support we receive, regardless of where we live? Young caregivers in a home hospitalization unit drive day and night along the Alabaster Coast. From house to house, from dying person to dying person. Accompanying a dying person at home also means accompanying their loved ones, immersing oneself for a few days or weeks in the intimacy of a family history. Thanks to them, the end of life returns to the home, to the family, and is rehumanized.