CPH:DOX 2013: Work Hard

Work Hard - Play Hard

Director: Carmen Losmann | Germany 2011 | 90 min

The working place should not be a place where you are reminded that you are at work. Welcome to Workplace 2.0, where everything is geared towards innovation, growth and optimising each individual employee. All a lot of hot air, no? A group of architects are given the task of building a new business complex for the giant Unilever group. The employees should forget that they are at work, and workplace community and small talk at the coffee machine should generate new ideas. But in an effort to take into account the person behind the employee, might one in reality end up overlooking it? Are today's jobs just so intelligently designed that we forget that we are performing a modern piece of assembly line work? However, no answers are given in advance, and 'Work Hard - Play Hard' is a well-conceived and aesthetically refined contribution to the debate about the future of work in postindustrial society: Chaplin's 'Modern Times' meets psychological science fiction in a reality where many spend half of their waking lives.

Work Hard - Play Hard (Germany, 2011, 90 min.)
Director: Carmen Losmann. Script: Carmen Losmann . Camera: Dirk Lütter . Sound: Andreas Hildebrandt, Ulla Kösterke. Edit: Henk Drees . Producer: Erik Winker. Production: HUPE Film.
with English Subtitles.

Taskovski Films Ltd.
7 Granard Business Centre, Bunns Lane
NW7 2DQ London
UK

Screenings:

No further screenings planned.

Extra info:

After the screening on 1 November there will be a panel debate about the modern workplace with the business psychologist Janne Skakon, the author Sebastian Nybo, and the professor and philosopher Michael Pedersen. Moderator: Peder Holm Pedersen from Turbulens magazine (turbulens.net).