Losers and Winners

from Multimedia Library Collection:
Environmental Film Profiles (videos)

Franke, Ulrike, and Michael Loeken. Losers and Winners: Arbeit gehört zum Leben. [Losers and Winners: Work is Just a Part of Life] Cologne: filmproduktion loekenfranke, 2006. 35mm, 96 min. https://youtu.be/J73G4HPilWc.

In documenting a chapter in the deindustrialization of the Ruhr, this film charts the reversal of fortunes at what was Europe’s most modern coking plant for a brief spell—just eight years. An absorbing study of human relations between the orginal workforce, scaled down from eight hundred to 30, and the four hundred Chinese workers charged with the task of dismantling the plant unfold among the ruins. The story attracted directors Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken to Dortmund for many reasons, not least because of what it implied about broader themes associated with globalization and the conditions on Earth that it produces. (Source: Adapted from the Official Film Website

© 2006 filmproduktion loekenfranke. Trailer used with permission.

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