Can paternalism survive a globalised economy?

This film explores multinational shoe company Bata’s impact on individual lives and their surroundings. The film’s aesthetic, shifting from site to site and shot to shot, offers pockets as a visual version of the bubble that was the Bata colony itself. The characters are all connected to that past. They guide the viewers through the merging of past and present in memory. The film’s colouration also evokes this mixture.

The idyll of living and working together is obsolete. This is a tale of colonisation, hierarchy, and the politics surrounding the work of individuals whose lives became entwined in a global vision. Tensions between parties in labor conflicts come to the surface. In a highly globalised world, the paternalistic idea of a company that provides workers with not only the monetary means to support themselves, but also with a “village” formerly called “colony” that combines housing, education, health care, and leisure facilities, seems positively utopian and quaint.

Here is the link to the film:

https://vimeo.com/685464952