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One subject, two minutes, no cuts – these are the rules for films being made worldwide for Labour in a Single Shot. Antje Ehmann and Harun Farocki spoke with us about their project that defies the fleeting glance.

Ms Ehmann, Mr Farocki, do you like watching other people at work?

Farocki: Actually, filmmakers become filmmakers so that others watch them at work. That’s not exactly the aim of Labour in a Single Shot.

Ehmann: It’s more about the question of how work can be portrayed. Feature films always show only the final hand movement of a task: a table is never completely cleared; just the last cup. Then there’s a cut and the work is done. Our project pursues a counterstrategy to this fleetingness that presently dominates in the media world.

Why did you choose labour as your subject matter?

Ehmann: It imposed itself on us. The appeal of our project is the diversity of the cities, countries and continents where we hold our workshops. Labour is a global subject and plays a role everywhere.

Farocki: We also could have used recreation or ritual behaviours, but dealing with labour leads us directly to the core of society. It’s not coincidental that a nation’s statistics first list the gross national product, average income and so forth. That’s the way we see things, as well. The second question at the latest one asks in an unknown city is, ‘what is the social situation here?’



The films are produced in workshops by filmmakers worldwide and follow strict rules. They may not be longer than two minutes and may not contain any cuts. Why?

Ehmann: In earlier days, every second of film cost money. People had carefully consider how and what they were filming. The rise of the inexpensive video technique was accompanied by the tendency to make countless shots of one thing. First you try this, then that shot and then you edit the material. This leads to a loss in intensity. In our experience, very strict rules lead to greater concentration. And each workshop confirms that our restrictions are actually enrichments.

You are not satisfied with the way films are made today?

Farocki: You can also do great things with lots of cuts. Today, a feature film cuts to a new shot every three to four seconds. That’s more than twice as many as about 1960. It creates variety but is often not really beneficial. Something has to be done to counter this loss of intensity. The actual trick, though, is that one moment should also contain all other moments.

Click on the screenshot to go to the web catalogue of “Labour in a Single Shot.”

If you see nothing but one shot for two minutes, you pay far more attention to the details and concentrate in a very different way on the images. Does this format give the directors any opportunity to involve themselves?

Ehmann: Usually, the participants do not make just one shot. Many one-minute films can create an author’s profile.

Farocki: An example: a filmmaker in Buenos Aires was mainly interested in the encounter between the camera and the person being filmed. There is no distance here, but more a reading, or a mirror, of the face of the other person. The person becomes conscious that they are being filmed and asks him or herself, ‘What’s going on here? What am I revealing?’ If you watch all four of the director’s films her method becomes very clear.

Ehmann: Something funny happened to us in Buenos Aires, by the way. The election of Pope Francis was announced while we were there. One of the workshop participants immediately went to the city’s largest square and shot the television broadcast there – the work of the journalists. The resulting film demonstrated her ability to create precise spontaneous shots.

What is the objective of your workshops?

Farocki: It’s about grasping the value and possibilities of one shot. What can be seen in the shot? Does it have a plot? Are there turnarounds? The people learn something about filmmaking. The second objective is to compile and exhibit the diversity and quality that is produced. In addition to the web catalogue we are also putting on a series of exhibitions. The first just took place in Tel Aviv.

What did it show?

Farocki: In Tel Aviv we only showed six works from five workshop locations. Nevertheless, they revealed incredible diversity.

Ehmann: We also exhibited an additional project that we do in each workshop: a series of remakes of the first film in history, Workers Leaving the Factory by the Lumière brothers. Participants make films of workers leaving their workplace. We don’t see much factory work nowadays.



Why the remakes?

Farocki: This first film uses only one shot, of course, so it is the reference, in a way. Non-public labour is made visible to the public in the one focussed scene.

Mr Farocki, your films often contain irritating moments. The images are deliberately misleading and challenge our viewing habits. What about the films from this project? At first glance one might say that in one unedited shot, one could hardly be more true to reality ...

Farocki: At first glance, yes, but many of the works also have other qualities, for example, are so realistic that they are hyper-realistic. One example is a film from Rio. You see an angler wearing rubbish sacks. In the foreground, joggers run through the picture. They have nothing to do with the romantic fisherman. This rams home the context in which such work is done today.

Ehmann: The films don’t necessarily criticize viewing habits, but they often play with perceptions. A filmmaker in Berlin filmed an empty hall. She then made audio recordings of the renovations and combined them with the scene of the empty hall. It has a magical effect.



You launched the project in 2011. Did the theme become more acute with the financial crisis and rising unemployment?

Farocki: Hard to say. There were already crises and many social upheavals in the world. Countries like India and Egypt don’t need a financial crisis to know the value of paid labour.

Ehmann: But, you could say that the spring revolutions changed the mood, for example at the workshop in Cairo. The participants did think more about how to represent something under the circumstances.

An Egyptian journalist wrote, “The format of a single shot elicited some qualms in the workshop, with much argument about how much can be expressed in just one shot, especially in a revolutionary context.”

Ehmann: In Cairo the question was always how much political content can one squeeze into two minutes. There were some participants who did not deliver anything because they had problems like this. Others, though, went on expeditions and discovered brief moments that work as metaphors.



Can you give me an example?

Ehmann: The film by one participant from Cairo shows work on a bridge in the midst of an awful traffic jam. Two workers are attempting to knock down a concrete wall. They hammer away at the concrete for a long time without making any impact. Around them, everything comes to a standstill. That’s a great metaphor, of course.

Farocki: The method of Labour in a Single Shot tends to look more at what remains the same, what has been there for a while, than at what is changing or ought to change.

Lisa Mayerhöfer conducted the interview.