Man of Iron / Człowiek z żelaza

Running time: 2'
Angelika Herta, POL 2011, 2’

It could be a fragment of a TV report from the People's Republic of Poland. Fanaticism, toughness, complete devotion. Close-up of a workman's face: craggy, with a moustache so popular in the '70s and '80s. Work is carried out with commitment, no slacking off, although the hammer’s changing rhythm may cause wonder. The following shots uncover the convention of the situation being filmed: the workman’s hammer is hitting the air, he himself is standing in a rectangle painted on the ground. The industrial hall (the place of action) is fully authentic, with a very strong symbolic meaning. It is the hall of the Gdańsk Shipyard. The production is something in between documentary film and video art.

Authors:

  • Angelika Herta

    Angelika Herta studied francophone literature in Austria and France and made her first film about Moroccan writers, shown in several places in Vienna and at the Festival Francophone 2008 in Bucharest. She lived for four years in Romania where she taught literature at the University of Bucharest. Since then she has been collaborating with Moldovan artists in the film project “Talking Letters”, about Romani, the language of the Roma. She currently lives in Poland, where she works at the Wyspa Institute of Art in Gdańsk. “Man of Iron” was chosen for a spot promoting the ALTERNATIVA Festival 2012, organized by the Wyspa Institute of Art in the shipyard of Gdańsk.

    Harvest Georgia (2011)
    Ceausescu ausgeschieden 2686/1990 (2011)
    I am professional Roma (2011)
    Rechts.Links (2010)
    Natural selection (2009)
    Lebenslauf (2009)
    Männer aus Stein und Metall (2008)
    L´appel de l´Orient (2005)

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