Rahul Jain • India • 2016

At a factory, workers labor for 12 hour days in order to make a living.

Located on the northwest coast of India, Gujarat is a region known for textile production. Inside an enormous factory, set to the constant buzz and whirr of machines, workers labor for 12 hour days in order to eke out a meager living and send money to their families back home. The machines are dull steel rather than gleaming silver; their carefully choreographed movements evoking a mesmerizing, unsettling beauty. Meanwhile, interviews with the factory's human laborers reveal a system of exploitation, inequality, and occupational danger.

Juxtaposing hypnotic visuals with the human toll of industrialized labor, Machines weaves a compelling political message—to regulate an ecologically harmful industry in which its workers are the most immediate victims. Rahul Jain's first film premiered at CPH:DOX, Vancouver, DocumentaMadrid; Sundance, where it won the Cinematography Award; and Zurich, where it won Best Documentary.