AFFR Rotterdam

ARCHITECTURE FILM Festival

Rotterdam, Netherlands

10.-13. October 2013

After the IFFR in January "Workers leaving the factory (again) / Die ArbeiterInnen verlassen die Fabrik" will be shown a the Architecture Film Festival in Rotterdam this year. It is screened in a very special shorts program that unfolds the changes in labour within the last 130 years. From the first film of the Lumière Brothers to the very present – a time reference that I am also suggesting within my film. Interestingly my film is announced as "dance film" which was not my intention but maybe perceived that way as there is a workers flow through the factory corridor.


SHORTS PROGRAM 
WORKERS LEAVING THE FACTORY

Saturday 12th October 13:15
Lantaren Venster

Workers leaving the factory is a collection of short films within the theme of deindustrialisation and modern immigrant labour. What is a worker worth and what has changed 130 years after the first Lumière movie when workers left the factory? A time machine in labour force.


LEAVES FALL IN ALL SEASONS / AHMED MATER / SAUDI ARABIA 2013 / 20 MIN
Immigrant labourers working on Al Shamia, the highest building in Mecca, send telephone film clips to their families back home. The filmmaker has collected these and combined them in a split screen with images of the building on which they are working. A unique combination of intimacy on an emotionally-charged and spiritual world location.

MODERN TIMES / CYRIL SCHÄUBLIN / SWITZERLAND 2013 / 7 MIN
A reference to the Chaplin film, Modern Times is a splendid document of how people experience the closed-down machine industry in the Ruhr Area.

WORKERS LEAVING THE FACTORY / HARUN FAROCKI, GERMANY 1995 / 36 MIN
The history of workers leaving the factory, based on twelve film fragments, ranging from the original Lumière film, which looks more like a farm than a factory, to Marilyn Monroe, who looks more like a princess than a factory girl.

WORKERS LEAVING THE FACTORY (AGAIN) / KATHARINA GRUZEI / AUSTRIA 2012 / 11 MIN
A dance film announcing the end of the industrial era in a fitting way. The dancers move elegantly towards the factory exit, a reference to the first film by the Lumière brothers: Workers leaving the factory.

WORKERS LEAVING THE FACTORY IN DUBAI / BEN RUSSELL / USA 2008 / 8 MIN
The Lumière factory built in 1895 in Dubai was replaced in 2008 by a construction site. But nothing else seems to have changed very much.


Click here to see the original Lumière Films online.