Machines

The True Cost of Cheap Labor in India

Marrying stunning visuals with social advocacy, Rahul Jain's debut documentary takes audiences into the labyrinthine passages of an enormous textile factory in Gujarat, India. Jain's camera wanders freely between pulsating machines and bubbling vats of dye to create a moving portrait of the human laborers who toil away there for 12 hours a day to eke out a meager living for their families back home.

Interviews with these workers and the factory owners who employ them reveal the stark inequality and dangerous working conditions brought about by unregulated industrialization in the region. This political message is delivered amidst the unsettling beauty of the factory's mechanical underworld and the colorful, billowing fabrics it produces.

Nominated for the F:ACT Award at CPH:DOX. Winner of the Cinematography Award and nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema - Documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival.

"A bracingly physical documentary about the true cost of cheap labor." - David Ehrlich, indieWire