The Steel Hammer Out There On The Grass
42m
Dir. Ruth Beckermann, Josef Aichholzer, Michael Stejskal - 1981 - Austria
On March 28th, 1981, 10.000 people in the city of Judenburg take to the streets to fight for their jobs at the steel plant that is threatened with closure. The film shows how the international steel crisis affected Austria. How are those facing imminent job loss affected by the situation? How does the determination to defend oneself emerge within a climate of uncertainty? The film documents the doubts surrounding trade union politics and develops a cautious criticism of the uniquely Austrian arrangement established between the unions and the employers’ association known as a Sozialpartnerschaft.
"The poetic sequences produced in colour...subordinate themselves to the grey and rough general picture, even if, in retrospect, they allow the emergence of a deeper understanding of the culture of a disappeared industrial landscape." - Work in Motion, Siegfried Mattl, 2007