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A curated selection of short films exploring the inner lives of women working in factories, contrasting their individual experiences with the mechanised worlds in which they work.

A lörinci fonóban (At the Lőrinc Spinnery) 1972

"Around 1000 women work in the Lörinc spinning mill. Some of them live in dormitories, some with their families, among them Anna, Erzsébet and the married woman Mrs. János. Mészáros captures each of the women’s own individual rhythms, consisting of eating, working and sometimes even a little bit of pleasure. Portraits of three very different ladies, framed by a mechanical occupation." - Go East Film Festival

16 minutes | Ages 15+

One Hundred a Day 1973

"Gillian Armstrong directed One Hundred A Day while a student at AFTRS. The film is a drama set in a 1930s shoe factory in Sydney, where a young girl continues to work at her machine after a visit to a backyard abortionist." - ABC

8 minutes | Ages 15+

Pytel blech (A Bagful of Fleas) 1962

"Věra Chytilová made her professional film debut with this 1962 fictional documentary set in the women’s boarding house of a textile factory, and told through the eyes of new apprentice Eva Gálová. The soft-spoken Moravian gradually gets to know her flatmates. She forms the closest relationship with Jana, who has discipline problems, and eventually receives a one-month ultimatum from the works council to improve her conduct. As part of the film’s experimental narrative structure, Eva remains invisible to the viewer – she does not step before the camera, and does not communicate with the protagonists of the story; but she does comment on events via internal monologues (this “invisible” figure was dubbed by Helga Čočková). The original, socially relevant story utilises a subjective cinéma vérité style courtesy of lighting cameraman Jaromír Šofra, coupled with an edgy, unsentimental, modernist script from writer-director Chytilová." - National Film Archive, Prague

43 minutes | Ages 15+