The Films on „Work“ of this Year’s Feature Film Competition
The European feature film competition focusses on one theme again this year, thus being unique among German film festivals. Eight films made by young directors in the last two years from eight European countries are nominated. The competition’s title is “Work! Don’t Work!” The festival’s theme was triggered by the question if and how work is reflected in feature films these days; if and how film — being the mass and entertainment medium that it is — takes up discussions and transformations of society.
The selected films all take on work from various perspectives and quite individually use it for the telling of their stories. A few examples: the Finnish film MAN’s JOB gives us the family father who keeps silent at home about being sacked. Rather accidentally, he finds out how much money can be made as a callboy – until his wife finds out: initiative as a means to cover up unemployment.
Wholly devoted to reality is GROUNDING (Switzerland), a mix of feature film and documentary, about the last days of Swissair – exciting like a (business) crime flick. In FAIR PLAY Frenchman Lionel Bailliu equates work with sports: clean rules; performance counts; fouls are permissable and emotions expendable if it is to your own advantage: the work place as shark pool. In the beautifully composed film FRESH AIR by Hungarian director Ágnes Kocsis a daughter is ashamed of her mother who works cleaning toilets. She wants to distance herself from that with all her might and a radically contrary concept of life: identity through work. The German film GEGENÜBER — COUNTERPARTS by Jan Bonny apparently takes work to characterise his two protagonists. The unease is so much greater, when the secret that has long been kept before the children and the colleagues is slowly revealed. In ARMIN, the father is ready to do almost anything at first for his son to get a job at a casting and make some money for the family: job hunting out of existential need.
The thing all films have in common is the bitter and fulfilling insight to what great extent work still defines your identity, and how you perceive others and are perceived by them, and how big a factor it is in psychological stability or instability.
The theme of “work” is not the only merit by which these films were selected. All eight films in the competition show a remarkable cinematographic handwriting and the courage of artistic originality. The selection also offers us a view on the buzzing European scene of film making and may sharpen our perception for things we have in common and where we differ, for the many facets of everyday life and film culture.
You don’t see the classic “grinder” in these films. He is obviously from a bygone era. Him you will find in the series “Heroes of Labour”.
» Detailed film descriptions (in German & English)
Award Ceremony:
The Award for Best Director worth € 10,000 will be presented Sunday, October 21st at 7 p.m.
