In nineteenth-century Łódź, Poland, three friends want to make a lot of money by building and investing in a textile factory. An exceptional portrait of rapid industrial expansion is shown through the eyes of one Polish town.

A Finnish man goes to the city to find a job after the mine where he worked is closed and his father commits suicide.

Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.

Iris is a shy and dowdy young woman stuck in a dead-end job at a match factory, who dreams of finding love at the local dancehall. Finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand and abandoned by the father, Iris finally decides the time has come to get even and she begins to plot her revenge.

Wallace is an efficiency expert, managing the high-profile downsizing of a major auto parts factory. But when he is hired to evaluate a small moccasin factory which seems from another era, Wallace has to reconsider the rapid modernization he advocates, as he is confronted by the human faces such plans hurt.

Rajan, a weary factory worker, endures grueling shifts and a volatile home life, drifting through sleepless nights in the city as he tries to reclaim the rest that always seems just out of reach.

While shooting a film, the director becomes interested in the unfolding struggle of a young factory worker that has been laid off by a boss who did not like her union activities.

A dark comedy about the only female employee in the warehouse of a sausage company who forms an unlikely bond with a stranger that throws both their lives into disarray, leaving them forever changed.

A 22-year-old factory worker lets loose on the weekends: drinking, brawling, and dating two women, one of whom is older and married.

Andula, an innocent Czech girl from a factory town, is desperately in search of love. She believes she's found it when she beds Milda, a charming young musician visiting from Prague. Milda, however, is only looking for a casual encounter, and leaves town assuming he'll never see Andula again. But when Andula doesn't hear from him, she packs up and heads to Prague, to the surprise of Milda and his parents.

Marion is a factory worker who hopes to trade the assembly line for a beautiful penthouse apartment. Mark Whitney, a wealthy and influential lawyer, can make her dreams come true, but, there is only one problem; he will give her everything except a marriage proposal. Will this affair ever lead to marriage?

In the late 19th century, a former high school teacher turned unionist tries to organize workers laboring with inhuman conditions at a textile factory in Turin, Italy.