Heart Of The Factory

The film looks into the life of a group of workers, men and women of the Argentinean Patagonia. They start a fight to stop the deaths and accidents that happen in the factory where they work. They live complex and dangerous conflicts, taking on more and more commitment. It is something that many of them never had imagined.

These strong episodes affect their perception of the world. No one can see themselves like the human who was. Something broke, something has changed and cannot return to the original place.

This is a permanent challenge and every day they fight against a political and economical system that tries to boycott them. Although many of them do not know it, if they win the battle in their consciences they will open the door to construct a world completely different.

The Ceramic Zanon-Fasinpat workers are a group of women and men, who work in one of the most important ceramic factories of South America. At present, they are managing the company. There are no bosses or owners. Everyone has the same salary.

When they started the fight, their goal wasn’t to take the factory – it was only to defend their labour rights. That’s why they brought the Internal Commission into the factory.

The delegates’ work stopped the daily accidents and the annual deaths in Zanon’s company. Also they put an end to workers’ massive dismissal every year (usually the oldest workers) and bosses’ psychological maltreatment of the employees.

But the biggest obstacle for the new internal commission is the ceramist trade-union. It was managed by the bureaucracy for the past 10 years, allowing Zanon’s management to operate against workers’ labour rights.

But the Internal Commission broke the fear that paralysed them and opened a new perspective to understand the reality.

They created the Workers’ Football Cup, to join all Ceramic Zanon workers. In this way, a strong bond based on solidarity began to grow among them. If a worker is dismissed or has an accident, their fellows understand that must help him or her, because any of them could be the next.

The unity, the organisation and the force into the human group grow quickly, supported by the democratic assembly method.

The delegates inspired their co-workers to participate in decisions. They never worked without mandate from base. This allowed the workers to recover the trust in their delegates. It had been lost by many years of trade-union corruption.

The majority of the workers asked their delegates to present a list to win the trade union. The “brown list” defeated the bureaucracy in elections. When the trade union bureaucracy disappeared, the Company began fighting openly against the workers.

The owner wanted to close the two third parts of the ceramics plant. Only Porcelanato (gres porcelain) plant, the sector that gave him the majority of the profits through the exportations, would continue operating.

For the 360 workers this means that just 60 could keep their jobs. Almost all dismissed employees would be the oldest workers with the highest salaries after 20 years. Luiggi Zanon had rewarded many of them for their dedication, effort and productivity at work. Because of their age, they couldn’t get a new job and would become unemployed.

The fight between the company and the workers began to be bigger than people expected. When the discussion was opened to Neuquén community, the people leaned towards to the workers’ because they could see dignity and justice in the ceramists’ struggle. The workers refused unemployment insurance, they were prepared to defend their jobs with their own lives, if necessary.

Zanon closed the plant and expected the workers to surrender. During months, the workers stayed in tents at the entrance of the factory. People arrived in strength bringing food and money to support them.

The poorest people helped them more than rich. They received more help from the poor than from richest people.

The anxiety and the tension are the reasons for many ceramists’ divorces, which have increased in number dramatically since the fight began. Their separated fellows are held, avoiding their fall into deep depressions. The situation could not be prolonged for more time. They decided to enter the factory and put it in production again, but without bosses.

From that instant on, the kilns are firing ceramics again. The heart of factory does not stop.

Since four years ago, the factory is operating under workers’ management. They had to overcome four attempts of eviction from the Argentinean Justice. Finally, a judge has to give the co-operative to the workers.

The system violence against the workers has its highest point, when two ceramists’ wives are kidnapped and attacked, by paramilitary groups. The two ceramists’ families have to be hidden in other provinces of the country for their security.

They began being 260 workers, resisting in the tents, now they are 470.

As long as in Argentina, the economic crisis lets hundreds of factories closed. Ceramic Zanon under workers’ management, not only keep the jobs, also it opens 210 new employment.

They organise the production without bosses, under democratic assemblies.

They have problems and daily challenges, but opening the discussion to the whole of the workers, they created a new labour system.

They know that it is very difficult for the workers to manage a factory without bosses. The system has trained them to work under orders. Their biggest obstacle is not in the outside but in their interior, in their own selves.

They had to study and to overcome themselves, to solve all the areas of the production.

They found in the democratic assembly the way to support their organization, because it obligates to all of them to take resolutions in the management.

They do not consider themselves as the new owners of the ceramic factory, on the contrary, they recognize as the only owner to the Neuquén community. And they return to the most needed sectors the surplus that the factory gives in donations.

This film is a documentary because its images were taken from reality. But it doesn’t look like a conventional documentary. It has the action, the suspense and the emotion of fiction films.

The camera carries the viewer through the interior of a factory working without bosses, to understand from workers’ daily routine and how they organise the production and the political resistance. The situations among characters have an enormous dramatic intensity and they explore deeply the universe of the human relationships.

The arid and clayey steppe, the violence of the wind, the implacable strength, the sun and the sound of the machines working, are the scenery where the ceramists’ fight happens.

The public can feel each situation from the characters point of view, because the camera is in the centre of the conflict with a privileged look. The narration is dynamic. The rhythmic and tension are powered by an editing that explore principally on the characters’ feelings and sensations.

The relationship among characters is a strong point to expound in the narration. It is worked through minimal and secret elements like the expressions or looks, more than the dialogues.

The past bring answers to the difficult conflicts lived by the characters. From this approach the film shows how the workers took control of the factory. The animations are narrating the characters’ recollections. The past and the present interact to build the dramatic story line. Also the archive material, like photos and footage, carries us to the past. But the psychological and emotional universe created by the animations and the conceptual images give a new dimension to the story.

Completed Steps:

We started this project two years ago. We have completed the research and filming.

Research

During the whole year 2004 we developed our investigation and script. For this we made two trips to Neuquén, the city where the factory Zanón is located. This is 1000 Kilometres from Buenos Aires, where we reside. There we we lived for two weeks with the workers inside the factory, sleeping inside.

We carried out 15 interviews from which we selected the main and secondary characters. These also allowed us to know the different points of view about the experience and to deepen the historical development from the human aspect. In the last months of the year, we finished writing the script and defined the aesthetic, narrative and performing outline to carry out the movie.

Filming

We designed a filming plan for two months, divided in four units of 15 days each. We completed the four units during 2005.

We work with a minimal team of three people: Guillermo Kohen is sound recordist. Virna Molina and Ernesto Ardito share the script, direction, production, editing and camera work.

With each travel to Neuquén grew a very close bond between the workers and us. They became accustomed to camera’s presence. We were able to film them with naturalness, in the factory living their daily conflicts. In this way, we were able to film the private side of the fight in its political and human essence.

The format of the movie is Mini-Dv, 25fps, progressive, 16:9 aspect ratio. We use a Panasonic DVX-100 AE video camera that lets us create a cinematographic aesthetics in the picture.

Audio: we are using two types of microphones: the wireless mic to record interviews and dialogues in the factory, and a Sennheiser shotgun to record the group scenes where the environment noise is not too high. We shot 107 hours of video.

Post Production

The editing of the film will be carried out on digital formats. The total post production work time is 6 to 9 months.

The first stage is of evaluation of the filming material and selection of the file material. The second step is animation designs and off-line edition, with composition and armed of the musical band. The third and last step is the on-line editing, dosage of the image and audio master.

The edition master will be in Betacam Digital. The diffusion will be made in Betacam sp and DVD. Spanish with English subtitles.

Zanon’s workers fight has world-wide recognition. Many political organisations invited them to travel around America and Europe. Many people are looking for different information about Zanon’s workers struggles but the majority of the materials about this theme explore the current political situation and not the genesis of the conflict.

The goal of our film is to investigate profoundly into the history of Zanon’s workers. We don’t want to idealise it but analyse it throughout its characters’ incisive looks.

We believe this would be our most important contribution as film-makers. We’d be collaborating for its ripeness and growth and moving away it of the stagnation produced by the idealism.

We started our project Heart of the Factory, at the beginning of 2004. At moment, we have completed the research and the filming but the post-producction of the film remains. We supported the film with our personal resources, which have run out. We are seeking funding to finish the film.

The estimated date of the premiere is November 2006.

Also it is open the call to sponsors and commercial distributors, who are interested in the film.

PERSONAL PRE-BUY Only for personal use. USD $35

PRE-BUY FOR GROUPS. Acquisition for organizations, study groups, trade-unions, etc. Minimum purchase: 10 copies at USD $30 each.

PRE-BUY FOR UNIVERSITIES. Acquisition for internal use of an university or a library USD $200

VIRNA MOLINA AND ERNESTO ARDITO
Paraguay 4554 1ºC
C.P. 1425
Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires
Argentina

(+54-11)4775-5026

nikargentina@ciudad.com.ar