Stranded in Prescot

Lee Anne Schmitt explores California's landscape and past to document the history of one-time boom towns built and abandoned by the industries that necessitated their creation. Sold as a limitless land expansive with free opportunity, California was actually, from its onset, fissured by the interwoven needs of private and public interests. Schmitt's film covers various locations through time, as the major industries of the early 20th century (mining, lumber, oil) give way to the military, eventually leading to multinational corporations, and the use of small towns as satellites for growing urban metropolises.

An engineering feat: Second city civil engineers complete a new bridge to carry traffic over New Street's tangled railway intersections.

In this pioneering documentary, one of the earliest Soviet sound films, Shub shot a contemporary chronicle of the progress of establishing electricity across the Soviet nation, a struggle spearheaded by the Komsomol.

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.

La zuppa del demonio

TGV, la réussite française

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.

Hmoty zítřka

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.

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.

Unconventional portrayal of mining in the Swedish Lapland ore fields, a powerful image and sound symphony that can be experienced both as a documentary and symbolic work.

The environmental problems caused by fracking in America have been well publicized but what's less known are the gas industry's plans for expansion in other countries. This investigation, filmed in Botswana, South Africa and North America, reveals how gas companies are quietly invading some of the most protected places on the planet.

In the cobalt mining areas of Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), babies are being born with horrific birth defects. Scientists and doctors are finding increasing evidence of environmental pollution from industrial mining which, they believe, may be the cause of a range of malformations from cleft palate to some so serious the baby is stillborn. More than 60% of the world’s reserves of cobalt are in the DRC and this mineral is essential for the production of electric car batteries, which may be the key to reducing carbon emissions and to slowing climate change. In The Cost of Cobalt we meet the doctors treating the children affected and the scientists who are measuring the pollution. Cobalt may be part of the global solution to climate change, but is it right that Congo’s next generation pay the price with their health? Many are hoping that the more the world understands their plight, the more pressure will be put on the industry here to clean up its act.

Crunch - Traum und Albtraum in der Gaming-Industrie

In a futuristic, antiseptic food factory, workers select healthy chicks, while the rejects are carried along a conveyor belt until they are crushed by a mallet and drop into a garbage bin. A single black chick appears among the yellow and is shoved toward the garbage bin. Before the mallet strikes, the gasping chick rebels.

Find out how the cars were crafted and discover the secret family stories behind the most famous marques including Riley, Standard, Triumph and Jaguar. Legendary racers Rosemary Smith, Pat Quinn and Norman Dewis share their memories of competing Coventry’s cars in some of the world’s most dangerous motorsport events. And, meet the people passionate about preserving the city’s extraordinary motoring heritage.

Steel - Variations on a Theme

This short documentary film is a fascinating portrait of urban and rural Quebec in the late 1960s, as the province entered modernity. The collective work produced for the Quebec Ministry of Industry and Commerce calls on several major Quebec figures.

Nos très chers animaux

A study of the automobile and its pervasive effect on the history of North America. Focusing on the Ford dynasty, from the original Henry car through to Henry II, the film demonstrates how society has adapted to fit the needs of the automobile.