Christine Pireaux and Thierry Michel (The Man Who Repairs Women)have been planning for years a documentary that would pay tribute to the workers who forged steel in the Liège basin. The result is a poignant film, which takes a humane look at the battles which have marked the history of the steel industry and which resonate today.
Through breathtaking archive images and moving testimonies, Christine Pireaux and Thierry Michel retrace the history of steel working, from its beginnings with John Cockerill to the final killing of the last blast furnace in 2003 This blast furnace, a living creature insatiable with work and sweat, carries the entire Liège steel industry behind it. Above all, the film pays tribute to the thousands of workers who lived to the rhythm of his pulse, who fought body and soul until the end to keep him alive.
Because make no mistake: the monster was not this dragon of iron and fire which spit golden lava day and night at the cost of the suffering of those who kept it alive. He gave back what he received, irrigating the veins of the women and men of steel who nourished him, supporting thousands of homes, supporting a region, each taking care of each other. The real monster is the capitalist market, cold, implacable like the blind baton of a law enforcement officer. A monster who, despite the determination, solidarity and burning resistance of the streets, swallowed up everything.
-The Liège steel industry is no more. But the monster is still there, and it continues to devour European industry, inexorably. This film sounds like a cry from the heart, the cry of revolt. A cry to never forget the struggles of the past and prepare for those of the future.
GUILLAUME KERCKHOFS, the Grignoux
