Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Detroit’s Packard Automotive Plant was once considered to be the finest in the world, and an emblem of the city’s economic and industrial might. But more than 60 years after manufacturing its last luxury car, the long-abandoned facility has transformed into a symbol for Detroit’s decades-long economic slide. The US filmmaker Brian Kaufman brings us into the plant at a unique moment in time: long after its life as an automotive powerhouse, but before its demolition and rehabilitation, which began in late 2014. With the building’s fate uncertain, it becomes something of a Rorschach test for locals, who view it by turns as a danger, a venue for public art, an eyesore, and the damaged spirit of a city desperately in need of revitalisation. Packard: The Last Shift – which is split between a poem from the Detroit-based Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Philip Levine and interviews with residents of the city – is excerpted from an eponymous 2014 feature-length documentary on the plant.
Director: Brian Kaufman
Producer: Kathy Kieliszewski
video
Ageing and death
We’re not the only animals that appear to grieve. What are the implications?
6 minutes
video
Archaeology
How researchers finally solved the puzzle of the oldest known map of the world
18 minutes
video
Art
A prisoner in Guantánamo finds some escape in building intricate model ships
6 minutes
video
Making
Forging a cello from pieces of wood demands its own form of virtuosity
27 minutes
video
Education
Scenes from a school year paint a refreshingly nuanced portrait of rural America
25 minutes
video
Art
Watch as Japan’s surplus trees are transformed into forest-tinted crayons
4 minutes
video
Meaning and the good life
‘Everydayness is the enemy’ – excerpts from the existentialist novel ‘The Moviegoer’
2 minutes
video
Food and drink
Local tensions simmer amid a potato salad contest at the Czech-Polish border
14 minutes
video
War and peace
A war meteorologist’s riveting account of how the Allies averted a D-Day disaster
6 minutes