Mobbing

Colour, 35 mm
Italy, 2003, 89 min
Section: Worried About Work

Synopsis

This realistic depiction of how a corporate merger transforms one employee from a valued contributor into an imminently replaceable cog won numerous prizes. Divorced mother Anna works long hours as a contract administrator in a large company. She’s good at her job and takes pride in it. When Anna’s firm is acquired by a multinational, everything changes. Without warning, she finds herself transferred to another office, to a position with no clear responsibilities. The new personnel manager gives her no recourse and her former colleagues start to treat her strangely. Every time she tries to reclaim some sort of useful role for herself, management changes her job. One day she is told to stand by a photocopying machine for hours on end, doing nothing; another day she is assigned to watch hostile workers in a warehouse where she feels her safety threatened. Writer-director Comencini underlines the story’s sense of urgency and conviction by mixing professional actors with actual workers.

About the director

Francesca Comencini (b. 1961, Rome, Italy) is the daughter of Italian director Luigi Comencini. She studied philosophy before directing her first feature Pianoforte (1984) which won the De Sica Prize at the Venice Film Festival. She collaborated with her father as scriptwriter on Un ragazzo di Calabria (1987) and La Boheme (1988). While living in France she directed La lumière du lac (1988) and Annabelle partagée (1991). After taking some time off to raise her children, she directed the documentary Zeno, le parole di mio padre (2001). She followed this film with two socially and politically committed documentaries, one on the G8 summit in Genoa called Un altro mondo è possible (2001), co-directed by a team of filmmakers, and Carlo Giuliani, ragazzo (2003), about the young demonstrator who was killed by a policeman. She also directed Firenze, il nostro domani (2003). Mobbing (Mi Piace lavorare, 2004) also expresses her social concerns.