ChemEng Culture: Connecting with Industry

Sam Baker reviews three short films that premiered at Sheffield DocFest in June, each documenting the point where emotion, art and industry meet

SHEFFIELD trades well on its industrial heritage. Affectionately nicknamed the “steel city”, its array of chic foundry-themed cafes and gift shops selling cutlery-related trinkets remind visitors that the modern, arty city was once the beating heart of a thriving British steel industry.

Documentary festival Sheffield DocFest, held annually in the city since 1994, is no exception – premiering a wide range of films that often explore the emotional impact of industry. Especially poignant offerings from this year’s instalment were the short films A Color I Named Blue, My Name is Oil and No Mean City, screened consecutively as part of a series centred on the topic of light. Each of the three films draws its strength from exploring materials of the machine age – dye, oil, streetlights – through a lesser-known lens, a filmmaking approach that DocFest has championed since its launch. So, if you’re keen on a somewhat leftfield and thought-provoking view, these documentaries are well worth your time.

A Color I Named Blue

A Color I Named Blue, which made its European premiere at DocFest, explores the innate creativity of traditional dye making. Set against the stunning mountain scenery of rural northern Japan, the 16-minute film follows two artisans as they craft indigo dye by hand – from harvesting the indigo plants and fermenting them to producing the final dye and creating striking blue fibres.

Dye maker Watanabe, who narrates the film, begins by explaining his deep connection with nature, while the stirring footage of mountainous indigo landscapes reflect Tokyo-based director Sybilla Patrizia’s love for the natural world. Watanabe says that creating dyes used to colour everyday objects makes him feel like a “conduit” for nature.

The film highlights a unique Japanese linguistic tradition: each newly discovered colour is named after the emotion its discoverer felt at the moment of its creation.

Naturally, this connection to raw materials can fade as rudimentary processes are scaled up for industrial production. But for many process engineers, A Color I Named Blue offers a poignant reminder of the humble crafts that gave rise to today’s major industries. Patrizia is currently in discussions with a streaming platform for global release and hopes the film will be available online by the end of this year.

My Name is Oil

In My Name is Oil, directed by Azerbaijan-based Igor Smola and premiered at DocFest, emotion is infused into the oil drilling process in a far more garish way – by giving human qualities to an offshore platform and imagining it can speak.

Needless to say, it’s a bizarre documentary. The 14-minute film progresses as a series of still shots of an oil platform, interspersed with footage of moving machinery. Industrial grunts and clangs are overlaid and subtitled as though the platform is speaking its own language, saying things like, “Sometimes I feel lonely out at sea, surrounded by nothing but waves”.

The film is strangely enchanting. At one point the narrator takes on the character of oil, saying “I carry the remains of the dead in me” – a reference to the fossilised animals and plants that form hydrocarbons, but juxtaposed with imagery of a mannequin head floating along an oil slick. At other moments, the film appears to critique human arrogance, as the oil platform issues warnings of impending disaster that go unheeded by the workers.