Cantieri dell’Adriatico

"Cines" n. 8 documentary.

The documentary starts with a pan shot across Carso and the war ruins, then it turns to a working-class area in Monfalcone. The camera shows machines and working methods, electromagnetic cranes lifting metal plates, hot forges, material being cut and folded. At Trieste's Saint Andrew foundries, welders and buzz saws never stop working. In the shipyard there is a submarine under construction, but the place is also a hive of activity around the cruise liner, "Savoia", whose building employs about three thousand workers. The film lingers on the different stages of manual work, on the workers' faces, lined by labour. The true protagonists are the workers themselves. We see them arriving by train, eating lunch from their mess-tins, working night-shifts to rivet the slip supporting the ship. The documentary ends with the cheerful images of the launch, when authorities, notables, and workers celebrate the end of the work.