DIE VERMITTLER
Director: Astrid Schult
Documentary | D | 2011
73 min | Stereo
45th Hof International Film Festival
2011
Three “case managers” or “agents” in a Berlin job center. Their place of work is almost like a confessional. Day in, day out, they sit across from people who are in dire situations, they process existential problems and try to help, console, or, if necessary, impose sanctions. Their decisions have considerable influence on the lives of their “clients”. Nowhere is the ever widening distribution gap in our society as tangible as it is here, where the laws governing unemployment benefits must be enforced.
It is here where people are confronted with big political decisions. Even for the agents, who are in constant confrontation with the losers of the work force and their human crises, and have the task of applying one of the most controversial laws in Germany.