“Winter 1924. For more than six weeks, 2,000 workers from the sardine canneries of Douarnenez (Finistère) will go on strike to demand a salary increase. A social and victorious epic, which marks the history and soul of the city. » In 2024, a hundred years later, the city of Penn Sardin (“sardine head” in Breton) has lost its place as the leading sardine port in France, but will largely commemorate these events, starting this Saturday, November 16. It is in this context that, for the first time, the documentary “L’Usine Rouge” by director Marie Hélia will be published on DVD, accompanied by a book, the only testimony, due to a lack of period archives, of the last sardine boats to have lived through this era and this militant adventure. Through this film shot in 1989, these retired women were finally able to express themselves freely.
“With typical Breton-tinged accents, crazy energy, without any self-pity, and, obviously, singing,” says Marie Hélia, smiling. In her family home, a stone’s throw from the market, in Douarnenez, Penn Sardin, from a family of fishermen and the cannery, continues, after 35 years of career, to convey this memory of “the role of women in maritime communities. And what could be more obvious than to look again at the sardine strike, and to participate, in her own way, in the superb commemoration which is being prepared at home for the centenary.
“In addition to screenings in Douarnenez (often private, in nursing homes, Editor’s note), I will already be able to show again, this Sunday in Brest, The Red Factorymy first film, which recounts the hard daily work of women at Chancerelle, the first large cannery in Douarnenez, their struggles and especially their experience, orally, of the great strike of the end of 1924-beginning of 1925″, develops the director.
In this film, no comments. “It’s their voices. Sentences put end to end,” describes Marie Hélia. All filmed in front of the camera, in 16 mm, with 10 boxes of film. “We kept it simple, and the simplicity paid off,” adds the director. “It’s a beautiful gift they gave me. »
New factory, new film
Other very feminine, committed films, from documentaries to fiction, followed for Marie Hélia. But we will have to wait for the continuation of the story of the sardine boats, which she will film in 2000 with “Les Filles de la sardine” (which will also be screened in Brest this Sunday), to understand the evolution of the profession and morals. “Following the strike of 1924, many women were union members, until the 1970s,” she emphasizes. “But here, we see that unionism is declining, if not dying. The exemplary struggle of the women of Douarnenez has not made any progress at this level, for the moment… And yet, there are still fights to be fought. »
While waiting for the centenary commemoration, Marie Hélia and Olivier Bourbeillon, of Paris-Brest Productions, have already launched crowdfunding to help the release of the book-DVD of “L’Usine Rouge”, in order to also perpetuate this working memory in homes. .
A brand new film, shot by Lisa Le Tonquer, on the workers of the new Chancerelle factory in 2024, is also being produced in Douarnenez.
Practical : the Cinémathèque de Bretagne will broadcast “L’Usine Rouge” then “Les Filles de la Sardine”, by Marie Hélia, at the Bellevue Social Center, in Brest, this Sunday, November 17 from 3 p.m. Free entry subject to availability. The entire program for the centenary of the sardine strike, from this Saturday, November 16 until January 11, 2025, can be found on the Douarnenez website: douarnenez.bzh/actualites/le-centenaire-des-sardinieres-programme-des-evenements/