The Happy Worker – or How Work Was Sabotaged
Details
It’s a charade, a play, a farce. The workplace is broken, and the prospect of returning to the office after the pandemic fills people with dread. Do we really want to go back to business as usual?
The Happy Worker takes us behind the shiny corporate facades to reveal the systemic problems that plague the workplace: from a culture of silence, fake change and incompetent managers, to how we educate our children. The film is laced with humour and irony, but without losing sight of the very real consequences the toxic workplace has for the health and happiness of the people who work there.
Guiding us on this journey are, among others, the late great anthropologist and activist David Graeber (Debt: The First 500 years, Bullshit Jobs) and the Berkeley-based pioneer of burnout research, psychologist Christina Maslach.
World premiere: CPH:DOX 2022 Nordic Competition
DIRECTOR: John Webster
SCRIPT: Eveliina Kantola, John Webster
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jarkko T. Laine F.S.C, Sun Kim
EDITING: Kimmo Taavila
SOUND DESIGN: Yngve Sætre
MUSIC: Olav Øyehaug
CO-PRODUCER: Elisabeth Kleppe/Aldeles
PRODUCER: Marko Talli
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Yellow Film & TV
Director
John Webster
Born in Finland of British parents, John Webster has been directing and producing documentary films for over 25 years. His films cover many subjects, but typical to his films are human-interest stories with strong central characters whose lives are followed over a long period of time. Over the years his films have been broadcast to a wide international audience, screened and awarded at festivals, and two of his films have received the Finnish Jussi-award. .
Contact
Arttu Manninen
Advisor / International Promotion and Cultural Export of Documentary Films
• deputy Jan 28, 2022 – Apr 30, 2023
• festival distribution strategy for documentary films
• project, travel and material support for international promotion: documentary films
+ 358 44 491 9069