
04 Dec 1959

Rhapsody of Steel
Animated industrial movie about the steel industry.
The Life and Times of Leo Baekeland
In 1907, Belgian-born American chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland made one of the most transformative discoveries of the 20th century: Bakelite. It was the first wholly synthetic plastic and ushered in an explosion of new man-made materials that marked the beginnings of our modern industrial age.
04 Dec 1959
Animated industrial movie about the steel industry.
09 Jun 1951
Shows the interdependence of all workers, jobs, and mechanization in the manufacturing process from raw materials to finished product, focusing on the car industry, and argues that this leads to greater personal independence and freedom.
01 Jan 1956
Progress in South Australia manifests itself around the Flinders Range country in the industries of Whyalla, Port Pirie, Port Augusta, Leigh Creek and Aroona Dam. Wildflowers cover the countryside.
14 Nov 1943
The invention and use of a jeep are described, from the viewpoint of one of the vehicles.
12 Mar 2025
No overview found
01 Jul 2016
A look at the makers of American made goods for men and the resurgence of clothing manufacturing in the United States.
11 Jan 1952
No overview found
31 Mar 2021
In the cobalt mining areas of Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), babies are being born with horrific birth defects. Scientists and doctors are finding increasing evidence of environmental pollution from industrial mining which, they believe, may be the cause of a range of malformations from cleft palate to some so serious the baby is stillborn. More than 60% of the world’s reserves of cobalt are in the DRC and this mineral is essential for the production of electric car batteries, which may be the key to reducing carbon emissions and to slowing climate change. In The Cost of Cobalt we meet the doctors treating the children affected and the scientists who are measuring the pollution. Cobalt may be part of the global solution to climate change, but is it right that Congo’s next generation pay the price with their health? Many are hoping that the more the world understands their plight, the more pressure will be put on the industry here to clean up its act.
20 Feb 2011
This French-Canadian co-production goes behind the scenes of the huge tobacco industry, whose economic power has been expanding for five decades at the expense of public health. A gripping investigation covering three continents, Nadia Collot's film exposes the vast conspiracy of a criminally negligent industry that conquers new markets through corruption and manipulation. To confront the tobacco cartel, anti-smoking groups are organizing and scoring points, but the fight remains fierce. With ist diverse viewpoints, shocking interviews and riveting images, The Tobacco Conspiracy deftly defines the issues in a complex situation where private interests and the public good collide. Enlightening and engrossing, this documentary is a hard-hitting critique of an industry gone mad.
25 Oct 2021
Whales beached after ingesting plastic, oceans soiled: a quarter of marine waste today comes from cans and plastic bottles. The drinks industry produces 470 billion single-use bottles each year, 25% of which come from Coca-Cola. Although the world's largest soft drink producer has set ambitious targets to prevent this environmental pollution, it has often failed to do so. In the 1950s, the company sold its drink exclusively in returnable glass bottles, which it washed and refilled. Two decades later, these were replaced by disposable bottles - a decision whose devastating effects still linger.
09 Sep 2006
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris.
12 Mar 1954
Surveys the role of chemistry in American life and the central role of the people, products, and plants of Monsanto.
01 Dec 1957
Le chant du Styrène is a 1958 French documentary film directed by Alain Resnais. The film was an order by French industrial group Pechiney to highlight the merits of plastics.
01 Jul 2024
Britain feels under-funded and falling apart. On the eve of the election, as politicians debate the causes, economist Tim Harford looks at what the numbers reveal about the broken state we're in.
04 Mar 1960
Documentary about shipbuilding on the Clyde. In 1960, Glasgow and other towns and ports on the River Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland, were still one of the world's great centres of shipbuilding. The film gives an idea of the business of building a ship - the largest moving thing made by man - from the naval architects who design her to the workmen, the shipbuilders in the yard, through to a ship's launching.
01 Mar 1959
An overview of the lobster fishing industry in Nova Scotia.
04 Apr 1995
This award-winning documentary film chronicles the accomplishments and relationship of John and Nathanael Herreshoff. These determined brothers overcame all obstacles, including blindness, to earn a worldwide reputation in yacht design and construction.
11 Sep 2014
No overview found
07 Sep 2012
Detroit’s story has encapsulated the iconic narrative of America over the last century – the Great Migration of African Americans escaping Jim Crow; the rise of manufacturing and the middle class; the love affair with automobiles; the flowering of the American dream; and now… the collapse of the economy and the fading American mythos.
01 Jan 1949
Short documentary on the wool industry.