A Steady Job (Il Posto) - Cinecitta Italia Docs

New documentary highlighting the plight of full time employment in Southern Italy, screening as part of  Cinecittà Italian Docs

A Steady Job (Il Posto) focuses on graduate nurses and healthcare workers in Italy who compete for just a few vacancies in their desperate search for job stability. Filmed largely before, but ultimately impacted by, the coronavirus pandemic, it provides a disturbing overview of the labour market in Italy – a portrait of a tragically broken system.

 

Filmed in the hand-held form focusing on those trying to find work for these graduates, travelling to job fairs on long journeys, the documentary has this unfortunate air of resignation about the downfall of government to give jobs in a vital industry.

As the film notes in the beginning, one in two adults in Southern Italy are unemployed and so they travel on coaches to these job markets in the hope of gaining employment abandoning family with dreams still in their hearts.

A telling scene is when the man who arranges the trips for these hopeful souls is driving home with his business partner and he stops saying is it worth it for him to do this anymore in this recrutiment industry - the weight of the world and the burden he feels weighs heavy upon his shoulders. This moment is shot as an excised scene from Michael Mann's The Insider.

The ending of the film which poses more questions than supplying answers for those seeking employment, shows the individuals walking zombie-like with a melancholic ethereal electronic score underneath - this is a generation of souls lost without a direction in this world.

Filmed largely before but ultimately more impacted by the global pandemic, this overview of the Italian health system is both sombre and tragic. This film grips the audience and becomes an alternative road movie of sorts.

A Steady Job (Il Posto) will have its UK Premier and screen as part of the Cinecitta Italian Docs season at London's Bertha DocHouse on Saturday 24th June with a Q&A with directors Mattia Colombo and Gianluca Mattarese