Since the late 1990s at least seven documentaries staging the closure of one or several factories and/or its consequences for the workers have been the subject of debates in cinemas in the presence of members of the arts world, scientists and politicians. The authorin draws a parallel between three of those films – whose action takes place during the « closure event » – to analyze their representations of the workers world and compare them with those of social scientists and new or old political militants. She observes several common points : film-makers whose professional and political trajectories are different view the factory through its closure and thus film workers and their relation to work in the context of its future loss. Their vision is close to that of some ethnographers since the late 1980s. Moreover, their films echo militants’ antiglobalization discourses of the years 1990-2000 and those of traditional political workers’ organizations : they stage in their way workers’ struggles and militantism, but integrate and thereby denounce the effects of neoliberalism. Lastly, by treating the closure of factories as a cinematographic object these documentary-makers stage « figures » of an old and stabilized fringe of the workers world whose future is called into question. Their artistic point of view on this world is close to that of social scientists and militants, thus explaining the interest of the latter in the former.