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Workers Leaving the Factory
Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik
Workers Leaving the Factory was the first cinema film ever shown in public. For 45 seconds, this still existent sequence depicts workers at the photographic products factory in Lyon owned by the brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière hurrying, closely packed, out of the shadows of the factory gates and into the afternoon sun. Only here, in departing, are the workers visible as a social group. But where are they going? To a meeting? To the barricades? Or simply home?
These questions have preoccupied generations of documentary filmmakers. For the space before the factory gates has always been the scene of social conflicts. And furthermore, this sequence has become an icon of the narrative medium in the history of the cinema.
In his documentary essay of the same title, Harun Farocki explores this scene throughout the history of film. The result of this effort is a fascinating analysis of the medium itself, ranging from Chaplin’s Modern Times to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Accattone!. Farocki’s film shows that the Lumière brothers’ sequence already carries within itself the germ of a foreseeable social development: the eventual disappearance of this form of industrial labour.
Bio Harun Farocki
Harun Farocki (1944–2014) began his career as an editor at the film magazine Filmkritik. Farocki started making films in the late 1960s in a highly politicised cultural environment. Over the course of his career, he produced numerous radio broadcasts, video installations, and more than a hundred films, many of them for television. He is best known for his essay films, such as Zum Vergleich, Ich glaubte Gefangene zu sehen, Auge/Maschine I–III, Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik, Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges, and Nicht löschbares Feuer. Many of these works are explicitly political and deal with themes such as labour practices and the production of images. His films also often explore the relationship between warfare, capitalism, and representation.
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- This film was #62 in the “Greatest” Short Films of All Time 2025