construction

With building collapses happening around the country, activists band together to confront the real estate developers and hold them accountable for the construction destruction, lives they have destroyed, and deaths they have caused.

The Erie Canal was an engineering marvel in its time and remains so today. This documentary travels from Palmyra to the Genesee River, stopping along the way to visit the people and places that make the canal so special. Canal historian Thomas Grasso offers insight into the canal’s past while the Golden Eagle String Band provides the music track.

A parallel montage of the construction of a dam in Galicia and the architecture of a small Roman-style church.

Man leaves his factory job and sells everything to buy an earth mover and start his own business, travelling from place to place with his wife and child. There is not enough work and he is eventually forced to emigrate after many hardships.

With humor, chutzpah and a piece of vinyl siding firmly in hand, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand and co-director and award-winning cinematographer Daniel B. Gold set out in search of the truth about polyvinyl chloride (PVC), America's most popular plastic. From Long Island to Louisiana to Italy, they unearth the facts about PVC and its effects on human health and the environment.

The Heroes of the Massacre River is a powerful documentary that chronicles the stories of the pioneers behind the construction of the historic Canal of Ouanaminthe, a project that united Haitians across the nation and the diaspora. This film celebrates the groundbreaking efforts of key figures, centering on Dr. Bertrhude Albert, Dr. Naismy-Mary Fleurant, architect Wideline Pierre, economist Etzer Emile as well as dedicated canal workers Milourie Sylfrard, Theodore Johnson and Joseph Pressoir — all guided by the investigative journey of Max Angie Clervil. It also serves as a commentary on the complexity of colonialism and borders, tracing the role that the Massacre River continues to play in the history of Ayiti.

A workman is oblivious to the danger he causes.

This PSA-style film from the 1970s titled “Use Your Head” was presented by the Construction Safety Association of Ontario to eliminate occupational head injuries on construction sites. The film discusses the benefits of consistent wear and usage of the construction hard hat, the different available models of hard hats, as well as how to properly take care of your hard hat. Additionally the film briefly touches on the history of protective headgear from the Vikings to the Trojans to military helmets from World War I. This film was produced by Toronto, Canada based production company Rabko. The film was produced in a low-cost method, using still frames of photographs to achieve a narrative, so that is feels like a slideshow.

A prairie landscape undergoes a metamorphosis: rural idyll to over-urbanized dystopia. Director Anne Koizumi laments the changing face of her hometown of Calgary in this critique of the bacteria-like spread of suburbia and exurbia. This film was made as part of the third edition of the NFB's Hothouse apprenticeship.

Five Japanese carpenters came to Boston that summer to reconstruct a Kyoto silkweaver's 150 year old townhouse that had been packed in crates and shipped to Boston Children's Museum. This first-hand observation of traditional tools and woodworking techniques chronicles the assembly process. In the progress of construction the contractor performed three Shinto housebuilding ceremonies.

After a massive earthquake cut the South Island town of Kaikōura off from the rest of the country, a huge effort went into rebuilding the road and rail connection along this magical part of the New Zealand coast.

An overview of high-rise construction activity in London. From the crane operators who build the new sky-scrapers to the tenants who live in the penthouses, this newsreel provides a colorful birds-eye view of London Town.

Filmmaker Geertjan Lassche follows a construction project in the heart of Rotterdam, from the first foundation pile up until completion.

A day-to-day record of the construction of the Confederation Bridge linking Prince Edward Island to the mainland, Abegweit reveals some of the innovations that made this mammoth project one of the most impressive engineering feats in Canadian history.

Drawn again from footage shot in the Torrance Public Library parking lot, Introduction to Crack Sealing 3 remixes material from the first two films into a new visual texture. Where the earlier works traced and fractured the asphalt lines, this version overlays them through double exposures that randomly overlap and fade in and out. The result is a shifting, layered surface in which gestures collide, blur, and dissolve, creating a cracked field of inscription.

For more than 120 years, Mohawk ironworkers have raised America’s modern cityscapes. They are called 'sky walkers' because they walk fearlessly atop steel beams just a foot wide, high above the city. In this nuanced portrait of modern Native Americans' double lives, Jerry McDonald Thundercloud and his colleague Sky shuttle between the hard-drinking Brooklyn lodging houses they call home during the week and their rural reservation, a grueling drive six hours north, where a family weekend awaits. While the men are away working, their wives often struggle to keep their children away from the illegal temptations of an economically deprived area.