The first movie ever filmed has a description as its title: Workers Leaving the Factory. We watch a group of workers leaving the factory of the Lumiére brothers at the end of the work day. The gate marks the line between the world of work and private life. The workers built the camera inside of the building behind them, now the camera records them leaving the place in which they built it. They know the camera is there, watching.
During their work time in the factory, the workers imagine, project and plan what they are going to do outside. Now, leaving the factory, their thoughts are no longer mere possibilities. The workers are in a hurry. They don’t look back, as if they want to get out of there as soon as possible. The door looks like a stage curtain that opens to let them leave; on the other side of it something new is beginning.
Now, a group of spectators wait for the workers on the other side of the gate, the factory’s exit, at the end of the shift. A small group of workers, about 10, stop walking. They sit in their cars or stand in front of the audience. They are on stage now. Their scenes construct a fiction: the play tells the story of a day in the life of a woman who works in a factory. In the workers’ performance there are a thousand emotions. When does something end and another thing begin? The spectators leave when the last worker leaves the factory and the security guard closes the gate.
GERARDO NAUMANN (born 1974) is an Argentinian theatre and film maker. His work moves in between fiction and documentary and is made with - in his words - „people with diverse forms of stage experience, including actors“.
One of his most significant themes is work in relationship with economics, body and acting. Before Workers leaving the factory he made The factory that was part of the international festival Ciudades Paralelas / Parallel Cities.Workers leavin the factory is a World Premiere for Malta Festival.
Workers leaving the factory is a World Premiere for Malta Festival Poznań.
concept and direction: Gerardo Neumann
performance: Wojciech Czosnowski, Agnieszka Juszczak, Mariusz Kania, Urszula Krotofil, Rafał Michalak, Elżbieta Michalska, Agnieszka Muchała, Maciej Muchała, Renata Walczak
thanks to: Beiersdorf Manufacturing Poznań Sp. z o.o. (BMP)
producent: Agata Podemska
production: Fundacja Malta
premiere: June 24, 2014, Malta Festival Poznań 2014