Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, chiffonniers – or ragpickers – were a common sight on the streets of big cities around the world. These early recyclers sifted through rubbish in search of items that could be sorted and sold to people with the means to reuse the materials. In Paris, this labour was regulated, and considered honest (if not especially glamorous) work. Today, recycling in France – and in many other industrialised countries – has been heavily mechanised but, as the short Plastic and Glass (2009) by the Dutch director Tessa Joosse demonstrates, the process still requires a human element. Tracking the recycling process at the Triselec plant in Halluin in northern France, the film plays with the rhythms of humans and machines working in tandem until the musicality of it all takes a surreal turn to the fantastical in this charming celebration.
Via Labocine
Director: Tessa Joosse
Producer: Le Fresnoy
video
Biology
Flicker through the eclectic beauty and biological diversity of 2,400 leaves
3 minutes
video
Animals and humans
What happened when one woman raised an abandoned squirrel as her own
8 minutes
video
Art
The female Abstract Expressionists of New York shook the world of art
15 minutes
video
The future
What’s the healthiest way to handle a creeping feeling that the world is ending?
15 minutes
video
Archaeology
From Roman pots to glass eyes, the shore of the river Thames teems with surprises
8 minutes
video
Psychiatry and psychotherapy
Pondering the peculiar one-sided intimacy of the client-therapist relationship
3 minutes
video
History of science
Bat-people on the Moon – what a famed 1835 hoax reveals about misinformation today
8 minutes
video
Human rights and justice
Thirty years after one teenager shot another, is it time to forgive?
28 minutes
video
Biotechnology
What it’s like to wear a prosthetic that ‘feels’
6 minutes