MUMBAI: After making the World Premiere at Sundance Film Festival 2017 and bagging the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for excellence in Cinematography, Rahul Jain’s internationally acclaimed directorial debut documentary feature, Machines to make its India Premiere in the competition category, India Gold in Mumbai Film Festival (MAMI), 2017.
Jain says, “I am happy to bring Machines in the place where it was made. I am really looking forward to the film’s reception in India. And what better a place for that than MAMI itself.”
The film will also be screened at Dharamshala International Film Festival, 2017. The documentary is a sensorial and kaleidoscopic meditation on the meaning of labor in an Indian textile sweatshop.
The film was selected as one of the Work-in-Progress Lab projects at NFDC’s Film Bazaar 2015 from where it got picked by international buyers and started its film festival journey.
Since then, the internationally acclaimed docu-feature has been screened and won awards in over 50 prestigious film festivals including Sundance Film Festival.
The film produced by Jain (Jann Pictures) and co-produced by Likka Vehkalahti (IV FILMS LTD), Thanassis Karathanos (Pallas Film) has released theatrically in across the world.
Synopsis: Our technological times enable us to reduce working hours like never before in human civilization. But, the reduction of effort by technology is a first world reality, where relatively comparable technology with lesser material infrastructure could do the same for a much higher mass of the population.
‘Machines’ attempts to examine the experiential reality of factory culture and labor processes through temporal observation. Rather than documenting chronology or history, it creates a portrait of the breathing rhythms of the humans who inhabit the labyrinths of the textile factory with its machines.
Background: India has domestic migration issues. There is historical inequality in the Indian government’s push for the development of industrial infrastructure. This has led to cases of extreme poverty and wealth being generated in particular states, leading to mass migrations for employment.
Film Festival journey and Awards: Institute of Contemporary Art – New York City. Frames of Representation – Opening Film. CPH DoX Denmark -- Best Film. Thessaloniki Film Festival, Greece - Best Film. Greek Hellenic Parliamentary Award -- Human Rights Award. International documentary festival of Amsterdam - Netherlands - Producers Award. Documenta Madrid - Spain -- Best Film. Docs Barcelona - Spain - Best Film. MakeDox - Macedonia - Best Moral Approach Award.
