Welfare Warriors (Sisäilmaa)

Origin and Year: Finland, 2021	Director: Tiina Lymi
Runnning time: 3 x 62 min

“Last year I had 400 clients and I had exactly 15 minutes for each one. I recently found out that I will have 500 next year because of the new optimization model,” Eelis tells his supervisor Anneli the day before he decides to jump off the roof of the Helsinki employment office. Anyone who has ever worked in the state administration can imagine that not only sitcoms but also a satirical horror film can be made about office workers. That is exactly what the Finns did. The heroine of the three-part miniseries is the head of the department, Anneli, depressed by the death of Eelis, trying to find a clue to his death in the movie The Matrix and at the same time to raise the “level performance to the required level”. Welfare Warriors benefit from a knowledge of movie clichés, an awareness of how things work in the office, and a willingness to make fun of anything that can be crammed into an excel spreadsheet.

Q&A’s after the screening with director Tiina Lymi.