Hot Docs 2019 – Symphony of The Ursus Factory
With sounds and body memory, the ex-workers of the Ursus Factory re-enact one day of work in a plant that no longer exists. The resulting symphony consists of the choreographed movements of the workers as well as of the technical, administrative and managerial staff, accompanied by the recreated phonosphere of the heavy industry.
Interview with Writer/Director Jaśmina Wójcik
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
I am a visual artist, a devoted activist and art that is focused on long-term synergy with the community. I’ve won a prize (120000EURO) for visual artists given by the Polish Film Institute together with the Museum of Modern Art and Wajda School. Thanks to this, I was able to start working on the documentary project Symphony of the Ursus Factory.
In 2011 I started working with the former employees of the Ursus tractor factory. (Ursus used to be a small village, but now it is one of the districts of Warsaw). Why? Because my father was born there, and the factory always defined this place. Now the majority of this district wants people to forget about their heritage and history. The land was sold after the urban transformation, developers came and started to build estates. The final result is a total disappearance of every material traces of this place. Not even one tractor exists there anymore.
I recorded the former workers talking about their jobs. When speaking, their arms, legs and backs moved as they used to in the past when they were working. They showed me how they used to look like. It looked like a silent dance. That was when I realised that their bodies still remember, and I found it fascinating. The idea was born then to make a film which will show these people and their usual day in the factory - the employees going to work, returning to their workstations as they look now, reenacting their work in a kind of a performative dance and bringing the produced tractors to life. The tractors from all around the country gathered to perform a dance of gratitude for their makers. Our characters return to their old workstations for one day.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
I think it’s kind of a unique view on the community – as it was before and as it is now. On the one hand, it is a picture of people who are no longer useful for the social structure and its purposes. On the other hand, they are something more than a group of people, their memories and experiences make them the unit of people and connect them permanently. In my opinion, this social message in connection with visual storytelling makes the film worth watching and thinking about.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
In this particular movie, we had a lot of possibilities to tell both - personal and universal stories. Obviously, each hero has one’s own story to tell – personal and very intimate experience from each other’s life. Their lives were connected during the job but their personal experience shared by each other built the connection that lasted all their lives until now. This brings the universal message and theme for the project – the community of people – something mutual for every human being around the world. The questions and answers which everyone faces during a lifetime. Also – the theme of sound and gestures that our bodies remember show through the artistic and visual creation - this also makes the story versatile and readable everywhere.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
After the announcement of the Film Award, I started to put together a filmmaking team. I chose people who I knew previously and with whom I had collaborated before as well as new people, whose work testified to the type of sensitivity necessary for working on Symphony of The Ursus Factory.
The filmmaking process was opened with an invitation issued to the former Ursus workers – asking them to come and share their stories about work in the factory. Two cameras (and two operators, Jakub Wróblewski and Kacper Czubak) were recording them for three days in the preserved original canteen of the aluminium foundry (today owned by Asmet, a private company).
We talked to the workers – myself (director, screenwriter), Igor Stokfiszewski (co-writer), Rafał Urbacki (choreographer), Dominik Strycharski (composer). Based on their memories, their former positions and stations in the workplace, Igor and I started many months of work on the script. We wanted to present the whole range of jobs, positions and workstations in the factory as well as emphasize the citygenic character of the plant (the city grew around it, populated by the newcomers from all over the country). We have spent long months listening to the recorded interviews and composing the characters’ stories so that they infused and complemented one another. In the end, we chose sixteen people.
The film structure consists of three parts: first, the characters are travelling to work with various means of communication – by train, by car, by bike or on foot; in the second part, they arrive at the factory and performatively recreate the work, which awakes the tractors of their production all over Poland; the last part starts with the incoming tractors performing a thanksgiving dance for their creators – the characters sit on them and remain on the factory grounds forever, as the spirit of this place. The whole is preceded with a prologue composed of archival photographs of the operating factory. The film symbolically features one day of the factory’s life – from dawn to dusk.
Having finished the preliminary version of the script, we commenced the sound and motion workshops for the characters of the movie. Rafał Urbacki (choreographer) and Dominik Strycharski (composer) conducted them over the following nine months. We would gather up, get to know one another, activate the memory, get accustomed to each other and our bodies. Gradually, we grew closer together. There were also moments of relaxation when we talked and ate the meals we prepared ourselves. Rafał allowed for the memory of bodies to activate freely, he imposed nothing, he was there, waiting. Dominik triggered the sounds characteristic of each person, asked for the onomatopoeic imitation of machines, orchestrated the choir of group individuality, pursued the acoustic aura of the factory. He made this multilayered process possible. Igor and I participated in all the workshops, perfecting the script and including Characters’ personal hopes and aspirations.
It was consulted with them in a very participatory and honest process. From the very beginning, I described the movie objectives in detail. This made the workers trust me (and us). Mostly, they knew me and my activities on the Ursus grounds. My years-long engagement allowed for the deep process of working with memory and places, with difficult experiences of job loss and the loss of place, where this job was performed.
The workshops were held between October 2016 and June 2017. In April 2017 we started the filming process, slowly coming to terms with its rhythm and rigour. It was so much difficult that we operated on very delicate and intimate registers. Shooting days are connected with the whole ruthless film engine, where we had to find the place for us and the characters, to safeguard them from this soulless machine. The synergy, build and developed for months, helped us to face the challenge. What we had worked out together – bore fruit. We were one strong and well-developed team built on trust and mutual support. Our protagonists bravely stood against the movie machine – they patiently dealt with retakes, doubles in uncomfortable conditions (in the sun, wind, damp ruins or debris of the factory halls). The experience of shooting days was exhausting, but it did bring us great satisfaction and a nearly tangible sense of salvation.
For me, the complexity, multidimensionality and scale of movie production are incomparable with any other experience. Jakub Wróblewski created the visual concept of the film, thus complementing the script – he planned out scenes, drawing them carefully and arranging the artistic means of expression. The Award that supported the budget, gave us the possibility to plan more sophisticated shots and use appropriate equipment (steadycams, carmounts, drones, sets of lenses with diverse focus) and gave us freedom of artistic expression. Jakub prepared a storyboard for each scene, having a postproduction stage in mind. We planned the film down to the smallest detail and wrote it over the equipment. All the shots (besides the field ones) were filmed on the former factory premises, which made thing more difficult, as the ownership of the area is divided. Obtaining subsequent permits was a tedious process, managed by Jakub Mechowski (responsible for locations). The yearslong activities on the Ursus grounds came in very useful – most of the institutions, companies and private owners knew our operations and understood their objectives. This allowed us to obtain permits. Shooting on these grounds, we were preserving them, recording their fragile existence. Unfortunately, the buildings disappeared shortly after we had filmed them, and the empty spots were filled in with new residential blocks. The historical pedestrian underpass, which the workers used to take from the railway station to the main gate of the factory, was torn down a day after our shooting on the site. We were racing against the clock to preserve as many places as possible, to snatch away fragments of the reality collapsing before our eyes.
From the beginning, work on this movie was very specific – responding to the characters, their gestures, movement, recollections, memory. Outside of the workshops with the former workers, we held regular meetings of our team: myself, Igor Stokfiszewski, Rafał Urbacki, Dominik Strycharski, Jakub Wr.blewski, Kacper Czubak. We planned the next steps, agreed on the schedule and the direction we would pursue as well as discuss the most efficient ways of conducting the whole process. When we were shooting the final scene of Symphony of The Ursus Factory, where tractors from all over Poland come to Ursus, the film set held one hundred people and twenty tractors (dancing Rafał Urbacki’s choreography). It was an authentic, true meeting of tractor lovers and constructors, creators and workers who had assembled them. The scene of this meeting, conjured up for the film purposes, actually took place and was very moving for everyone (protagonists, tractor drivers as well as the entire filmmaking crew). Invited to climb onto the tractors by the drivers, the protagonists climbed and sat on the machines. It turned out to have been a dream many of them shared (although they assembled tractors, they never had a chance to drive one). The energetic spiral – positive energy radiated from the protagonists to others, to all collaborators who had joined in the making of this film.
Thinking about it, I am still amazed at everything that happened and the fact that it happened at all. This would not be possible with operations on a smaller scale. The final scene was a major logistic endeavour. The ten-hour day of work was exhausting for the tractor drivers – all this time they were conducting choreography sitting on their machines (some of which, especially the oldest models, make enormous roar, they are extremely noisy), manoeuvring among one another, starting synchronically, carefully driving up to the protagonists. Nonetheless, their faith in the sense of this film and the presence on the post-industrial grounds won against the wear and strain. Persistently, they remade the scenes, putting their machines in the initial formation. For them, the movie experience was extreme; they were used to individual drives in front of cheering public, and now they had to tediously repeat the arrangements with no audience at all (the film set rigorously requires the presence of a bare minimum of people performing particular tasks). Still, they gave it their whole.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
Great and very touching from the audience in every country in which we presented the film - Spain, Germany, Croatia, Poland. Soon we will have North American Premiere at Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto. I can’t wait to see what the other part of the world has to say about it.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
I was surprised that our history is so universal worldwide. I thought it might not be understood as it was in Poland.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
I hope that more people will learn the stories of our heroes, as well as our way of working (participatory, deeply immersed in the community, long time). It is always good to have more visibility through different platforms, so I’m really glad that we managed to be here.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
I would like our relationship with colleagues to change. That we work in places that care about us, that we care about other people. But first and foremost, I would like us to be able to listen to the stories of our neighbors, who talk about very local, identity stories that determine who we are today and how we found ourselves here.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Could this film or any other film have a real social impact? Can the movie change reality, be helpful anyhow for society? Can the film evoke a discussion about directing ethic? About the way, the hero is treated and involved in the film process, the way of creating narration in a documentary film.
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
I’m a director and a socially active visual artist, I work with disadvantaged groups. I deal with inclusion and giving subjectivity to communities without visibility and the possibility of expression. My first film, a creative documentary called Symphony of the Ursus Factory, deals with body memory. It was developed following a 7-year scientific-artistic-participation work with former employees of the bankrupt tractor factory in the Warsaw district of Ursus. In 2018 during my artistic residency in Ramallah, in West Bank, I met an eco-designer, permaculturist and educator, Mohammad Saleh. Together we prepared video manuals for refugee camp communities helping them set up self-sustaining gardens – from garbage that can be found around them (PET bottles, plastic barrels, compost etc.). Working with Mohammad was an unforgettable experience and the film became publicly available. During a conference in Germany, Mohammad (talking about his educational and ecological practice, showing films we made together) met Aizzat Naeem from Cairo. Mohammad learnt Aizzat’s unique story and, in turn, Aizzat told him that Zabbaleen was full of roofs, garbage and organic waste – we could make all roofs green! Mohammad contacted me and told me everything. His enthusiasm and commitment were great. I started to gather materials about Zabbaleen and was dumbfounded.
I understood that is where the center of the world is, that they – in their unimaginably hard work- make the human’s dream about a better world come true. I sort my garbage – I wash, dry and throw away the plastic into the dedicated container. My conscience is clear. But when I see photos from Africa, Cairo, India or Indonesia I don’t feel so comfortable anymore. That is where my clean plastic washes away, where it swells and creates garbage islands. It is my duty to make a film about Zabbaleen and show what sorting garbage should look like and how we should salvage it. But also – by engaging Mohammad, the film can create the future and visibly change it – giving Zabbaleen a wonderful green space of rest, shade and food.
I'm colaborating with Agnieszka Rostropowicz-Rutkowska and Rozbrat Films (Maria Gołoś, Monika Matuszewska).
Interview: April 2019
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
Symphony of The Ursus Factory
With sounds and body memory, the ex-workers of the Ursus Factory re-enact one day of work in a plant that no longer exists. The resulting symphony consists of the choreographed movements of the workers as well as of the technical, administrative and managerial staff, accompanied by the recreated phonosphere of the heavy industry.
Length: 1:01:00
Director: Jaśmina Wójcik
Producer: Wojciech Marczewski, Zuzanna Król
Writer: Jaśmina Wójcik, Igor Stokfiszewski
About the writer, director and producer:
JASMINA WOJCIK is an activist, visual artist, director, academic and pre-school teacher. Since 2011, she is the author and initiator of multidisciplinary operations on the border of art and social activism with the former workers of the Ursus tractor factory including i.a. site-specific activities in the public space, social and artistic actions, performance, happenings, independent films and the full-length creative documentary Symphony of The Ursus Factory. She invites the Ursus district residents and other people of Warsaw to the post-industrial grounds and integrated them around the district history as well as the future of this post-industrial area. She believes that art actively changes the city and it can activate the memory of place and help build its identity. She thinks it is essential that artists take responsibility for their surroundings. She is involved with including and restoring the subjectivity of communities deprived of visibility and their own voice. She is engaged in alternative education through developing original practices of artistic expression for children. In parallel, in her artistic practice, she tries to be open to institutions of culture and art as well as to interactions with their visitors (as co-creators and partners in dialogue). Jaśmina works with memory and the direct experience of the community being gradually expunged from social awareness. She rebuilds the sense of individual value founded in the former political system. The artist also takes responsibility for what she presents (literally) to others. Moreover – and maybe foremost – she attempts to reach the border of “social applicability of art”, which is there not to decorate, but rather to rake up the forgotten, often exposing a wound, and then apply care and empathy to commemorate and honour the protagonists of a given place. Lidia Krawczyk (Bunkier Sztuki Gallery)
Wajda Studio was founded in 2011by two directors, Andrzej Wajda and WOJCIECH MARCWEWSKI. Thanks to the close co-operation and support of the Polish Film Institute, Wajda Studio has produced over 80 documentaries and short features. The Studio runs EKRAN+ European Training Programme for Film Professionals. In 2012, Wajda Studio produced its first feature-length international co-production, Sanctuary, a joint project with Ireland, directed by Norah McGettigan. In 2013, Wajda Studio produced Joanna, an Academy Award nominee for Best Short Subject in 2015. Wajda Studio’s The Performer, directed by Maciej Sobieszczański and Łukasz Ronduda premiered internationally at IFF Rotterdam 2015 and was presented at the 65th Berlinale, where it received the Think: Film Award. www.wajdastudio.pl
Facebook: Symfonia Fabryki Ursus/Symphony of The Ursus Factory
Hashtags used: #symphonyoftheursusfactory
Funders: Film Award (Museum of modern art in Warsaw, Polish Film Institute, Wajda School), Mazovia Warsaw Film Commission, MX35, WFDiF, Kronika Filmowa, FINA
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? Hot Docs, Millenium Docs Against Gravity