A snapshot of the automotive industry, where economic and societal crises converge: Sedanur and Eva do not work directly for Audi, but for service providers who do. One works as a temporary logistics employee, while the other, as a headhunter, seeks specialists to further automate the same logistics. Sedanur ultimately loses her job due to the fallout from the emissions scandal. Automotive explores the current state of work in relation to life plans and self-understanding, presenting a sharp dual portrait of the two women interwoven with historical archive footage, glimpses of fully automated smart factories, and a subplot on the long struggle of union activism. While the recruiter would gladly turn her profession into a calling and escape to the Caribbean, the temporary worker’s dream is a permanent position with the option of a forklift license. (Joachim Schätz)

Panel Discussion
Following the screening, a panel discussion will explore the role of social class in contemporary work-related films: Do films like AUTOMOTIVE develop their own class consciousness, or does class as a category of perception and experience tend to disappear from view? What role can films play in identifying societal issues, and how might they give specific weight to political struggles? These questions will be discussed with film scholars and sociologists.

Moderation:
Christoph A. Büttner, media scholar at the University of Bayreuth; author of the book Post-Fordist Fragments: Cinematic Worlds of Work and Representations of the Social, Brill|Fink 2022.

Panel:
Guido Kirsten, media and film scholar, scientific director of the Emmy Noether junior research group “Cinematic Discourses of Scarcity” at the Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF Film University
Olivia Poppe, media and film scholar, research associate at the Institute for Theatre, Film, and Media Studies, University of Vienna