Machines

In his debut film MACHINES (winner of the Special Jury Award for Cinematography at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival), Rahul Jain returns to his childhood home of Sachin in India’s Gujarat state and documents a striking visual paradox: intensely sensual images of colorful fabrics produced in a Dickensian factory in which men and children work tirelessly for a pittance, some barefoot. They are some of the 45 million workers that support the $40 billion Indian textile and garment industries.

Punctuating stunning Steadicam shots, where Mr. Jain’s camera takes viewers into dark, damp and sometimes fiery working spaces, are sparse and sharp testimonials from the workers describing their own experiences – as well as their failed efforts at improving working conditions. One man asks rhetorically: “But what is poverty anyway? Poverty is harassment, Sir.”

Uniquely combining ravishing visuals with social advocacy, MACHINES weaves a moving portrait of people toiling amid pulsating machines, bubbling vats of dye, and colorful, billowing cascades of textiles.

“Gliding, quietly mesmerizing… The camera, elegantly manned by Rodrigo Trejo Villanueva… works as macro and micro levels, closing in on a wealth of expressive and reactive human detail.” – Guy Lodge, Variety

"“An all-too-rare combination of artistic vision and social conscience. Eye-opening and austerely uncompromising." – Neil Young, The Hollywood Reporter

"Five stars! Astonishing. A dignifying hymn to the common worker." —The Guardian