VABRIK- the film

view the film

31 min.
b&w
Russian with EnglST
2010

with
Dora Grafova and ekaterina Moskalenko



Vabrik is a film about the image of the factory more than the factory itself: textile manufacture in Estonia on the river border with Russia. "Vabrik", "factory" in Estonian, evokes the history of industry in the mid-nineteenth century to today. The images show the passages of the Soviet economy - in Estonia since 1944 - to the capitalist economy with its current limitations: factories closed because it can not continue to occur, we have moved from an economy in brandmaking technocrat and offshoring. The manufacture is still standing, like a dinosaur is dying slowly. Several hundred workers are still working, whereas before the privatization of perestroika were 15,000.
The factory was the vital center of the city of Narva, all families worked for generations on its territory. There were clinics, nurseries, schools, libraries ... With some beautiful images of soft propaganda of the years 60-70s and later with my images tracing the last days of the factory, my film questions this image of the factory and how one can understand ist current developments. From my pictures, first - the rooms are already, weaving images of the past because the rooms were closed and the second - in units of printing, sewing and packaging are almost desperate, because these are the latest scores workers facing dismissal.

KREENHOLM part1 - the manufacture-

KREENHOLM the manufacture

part 1

25 min.
b&w
russian with engl. or Estonian sT

a history of textile industry

images:
Narva Museum photo and film archive
and Eléonore de Montesquiou

music and sound: Marcel Türkowsky

Russian with engl. or Estonian sT















In February 2008, a worker showed me around the Kreenholm textile factory. It was a one-day opportunity to film inside a factory which is gradually closing down and this employee, an electrician who has been working there for forty years, would soon lose his job. Inside the factory, I filmed the last days of the spinning and weaving machines.
I returned one year later, in 2009, to find that the buildings I visited previously had all closed down. However, I was permitted to film the last production units operated by a few hundred workers: bleaching, printing and sewing fabrics imported from Turkey, India and Pakistan.
My film tells the story of this textile factory at the border of Estonia and Russia through the memories of an elderly woman, Dora. She recalls how her family’s story is intertwined with that of the fabric, and of the generations that have worked there. Kreenholm was a unique example of 19th century industrial organisation..
The last decades of its life as a factory reflect the current development of the textile industry from technocracy to brand-building and marketing. Delocalization, restructuring and globalization are all well-known today and in this region they have induced an economic disaster -- specifically for the cities of Narva and Ivangorod.

The film alternates between images of Kreenholm today and from historical photographic and film archives.

KREENHOLM part2 -the last units-

KREENHOLM -the last units-

part2

15 min.
b&w
Russian w/English or Estonian sT
2009

Summer 2009:
I returned inside the manufacture to find that the buildings I visited previously had all closed down. However, I was permitted to film the last production units operated by a few hundred workers: bleaching, printing and sewing fabrics imported from Turkey, India and Pakistan.

KREENHOLM part3 -Oleg Klushin - Олег Клушин

Oleg Klushin

30 min.
2009
b&w
Russian with Engl. or Estonian sT


A talk with Oleg Klushin who was director of Kreenholm manufacture in the 1980s.
with the participation of Ekaterina Moskalenko.
Oleg Klushin explains how the slow decline of Kreenholm reflects a change in the philosophy of textile production as well as a change in leadership, from technocracy to brandmaking."