Machines (2017)
(Rahul Jain, India/Finland/Germany 2017, 71 min., DCP, Hindi w/subtitles)
Labor Film Series | Rochester Premiere. Stunning visuals combine with social advocacy in Rahul Jain’s debut documentary, which won the Special Jury Award for Cinematography at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Taking audiences into the labyrinthine passages of an enormous textile factory in Gujarat, India, Jain’s camera wanders freely between pulsating machines and bubbling vats of dye to create a moving portrait of the workers. Interviews with the workers, who toil there twelve hours a day for meager wages to send to their families back home, and with the factory owners reveal the stark inequality and dangerous working conditions brought about by unregulated industrialization in the region.