A DECENT FACTORY

In an increas­ing­ly glob­al­ized econ­o­my, more cor­po­ra­tions are ‘out­sourc­ing’ their pro­duc­tion to coun­tries with cheap­er labour costs and less legal pro­tec­tion of work­ers’ rights. Some cor­po­rate man­agers, whether out of sin­cere moral con­cern or because they must respond to the con­sid­er­a­tions of investors and share­hold­ers, are attempt­ing to bal­ance profit-making with social morality. 

A DECENT FACTORY focus­es on such an effort by Nokia, the Finnish elec­tron­ics firm, which sends a team led by two busi­ness ethics advi­sors to exam­ine con­di­tions at a Chi­nese fac­to­ry that sup­plies parts to Nokia. Film­mak­er Thomas Balmès, having con­duct­ed three years of research on the sub­ject, fol­lows them on their inves­tiga­tive jour­ney. The film doc­u­ments in fas­ci­nat­ing detail their inspec­tion of the plant, guided by its Euro­pean and Chi­nese man­agers. During their tour the Nokia team inves­ti­gates work­ing and safety con­di­tions, pay­roll records, and poten­tial envi­ron­men­tal haz­ards. They also con­duct prob­ing inter­views with the fac­to­ry man­agers as well as sev­er­al of the young Chi­nese female employ­ees who work and live in dor­mi­to­ries on the site. The advi­sors’ final report to Nokia man­agers, which expos­es numer­ous vio­la­tions of even the less strin­gent Chi­nese laws on min­i­mum wage and work­ing con­di­tions, con­fronts Nokia with the dilem­ma now facing an increas­ing number of West­ern firms - how is it pos­si­ble to bal­ance the profit motive with a sense of social responsibility?

Pink Saris

In the north­ern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Sampat Pal Devi fights against forced mar­riage, vio­lence against women, and the humil­i­a­tion faced by the untouch­ables. The ener­getic Sampat, who con­trary to tra­di­tion­al roles is respect­ed at all times wher­ev­er she goes, faced vio­lence and oppres­sion her­self when she was mar­ried off at the age of eight. Since then she has been eman­ci­pat­ed from her family and is now the leader of the so called Gulabi Gang, a fem­i­nist vig­i­lante group of sorts that wears pink saris and helps other oppressed girls and women. Among them Rekha, a 14 year old untouch­able who is three months preg­nant, yet unable to marry the father of her child because he belongs to anoth­er caste. Or 15 year old Renu, who speaks of throw­ing her­self in front of a train because her hus­band from an arranged mar­riage has left her and her father-in-law has raped her. 

Kim Longinot­to’s inge­nious artistry lies in an ele­gant abil­i­ty to estab­lish trust with sub­jects and a deep sen­si­tiv­i­ty to their cul­tur­al con­texts, yield­ing an alchem­i­cal inti­ma­cy in which sub­tleties and com­plex­i­ties are allowed to sur­face and unfold to breath-taking effect. (Sun­dance Film Festival) 

Strange Beasts

Set on the out­skirts of the Bow­land Fells, North York­shire, this film con­tains no dia­logue, but is instead a sen­so­ry explo­ration into the realms of an Eng­lish dairy farm. Paired with the exper­i­men­tal use of sound­scape and con­tact micro­phone record­ings, the camera is a quiet wit­ness as the parlor bus­tles with a sea of pied cows, the land­scape hums with the sound of elec­tric wire and a calf is pulled into exis­tence with the tug of a rope.

Behind the Wheel

Tajik­istan is one of the most remit­tance-depen­dent coun­tries in the world. Every year, hun­dreds of thou­sands of migrant work­ers leave Tajik­istan in search of employ­ment. The money sent back pro­vides a huge boost to the econ­o­my. The vast major­i­ty of these migrants are male, which means the Tajik pop­u­la­tion is becom­ing increas­ing­ly female. So what hap­pens to the women who are left behind? BEHIND THE WHEEL explores the moral and emo­tion­al tur­moil of Nigora, an Uzbek woman whose tra­di­tion­al life of being a house­wife is turned upside down after her migrant hus­band fails to send back enough money and she finds out he has been having an affair. No longer able to rely on him, Nigora defies pre­vail­ing gender norms and sets to work fixing car tires. (global voices)

Moving is a Blessing

After having lived in the Nether­lands for over 20 years, my par­ents, Gulzar and Shwan, decid­ed to move back to Kur­dis­tan. Escap­ing the Iraqi regime as refugees in the early ‘90s, Iraqi Kur­dis­tan has recent­ly devel­oped into a region­al safe-haven. How­ev­er, with cur­rent ten­sions around the threat of the Islam­ic State (IS), the social and polit­i­cal land­scape is chang­ing dras­ti­cal­ly. In MOVING IS A BLESSING I follow my par­ents’ return to their home­land whilst address­ing notions of belong­ing, transna­tion­al­ism, tem­po­ral­i­ty and (re)imagining future hori­zons.” (Lana Askari)

Photo Wallahs

Renowned ethno­graph­ic film­mak­ers David and Judith Mac­Dougall explore the many mean­ings of pho­tog­ra­phy in this pro­found and pen­e­trat­ing doc­u­men­tary. The film focus­es on the pho­tog­ra­phers of Mus­soorie, a hill sta­tion in the Himalayan foothills of north­ern India whose fame has attract­ed tourists since the 19th cen­tu­ry. Through a rich mix­ture of scenes that includes the pho­tog­ra­phers at work, their clients, and both old and new pho­tographs, the film exam­ines pho­tog­ra­phy as art and as social arti­fact -- a medium of real­i­ty, fan­ta­sy, memory, and desire.

There is now an inter­est in making films that do not simply deliv­er a state­ment about a topic but open it up in richer and more pro­duc­tive ways. These are films that devel­op com­plex net­works of con­nec­tions and rela­tion­ships. In a sense they are meant as struc­tures for gen­er­at­ing mean­ing. That is cer­tain­ly our inten­tion in PHOTO WALLAHS. We want it to be a resource for a range of obser­va­tions, ideas, and pos­si­bil­i­ties.” (David Mac­Dougall, Visual Anthro­pol­o­gy Review)