KREENHOLM
the manufacture
lien vimeo: https://vimeo.com/51593288
Part 1: a history of textile industry
25 min.
2009
original language: Russian
w/ English subtitles (or Estonian)
black and white
Estonia
images: Narva Museum photo and film archive
and Eléonore de Montesquiou
music and sound: Marcel Türkowsky
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.
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.