Micmacs

Paradise Now

September 2005 •English

Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

The Full Monty

August 1997 •English

Sheffield, England. Gaz, a jobless steelworker in need of quick cash persuades his mates to bare it all in a one-night-only strip show.

Netto

May 2005 •German

Follows the lives of an unemployed drunk and his son as they struggle to adapt to each other.

Men...

December 1985 •German

A successful, womanizing middle-aged man decides to move out of the house he shares with his wife after she confesses to having an affair. He looks for a new place to live and ends up moving into his wife's lover's apartment as a roommate. The husband begins to take an interest in the artistic work of the lover and coaches him for a big job interview. Little does he know that the job he's helping the lover to get is within his own company... A story about strange circumstances and the limits of friendship.

Drifting Clouds

January 1996 •Finnish

The ever-poker-faced Ilona loses her job as a restaurant hostess, as her tram driver husband, Lauri, also finds himself out of work. Together they must hit the streets of Helsinki, facing up to hardship and humiliation in their quest for survival, guided through the gloom by a ray of hope.

Fun with Dick and Jane

December 2005 •English

After Dick Harper loses his job at Globodyne in an Enron-esque collapse, he and his wife, Jane, turn to crime in order to handle the massive debt they now face. Two intelligent people, Dick and Jane actually get pretty good at robbing people and even enjoy it -- but they have second thoughts when they're reminded that crime can hurt innocent people. When the couple hears that Globodyne boss Jack McCallister actually swindled the company, they plot revenge.

Harsh Times

September 2005 •English

Jim Davis is an ex-Army Ranger who finds himself slipping back into his old life of petty crime after a job offer from the LAPD evaporates. His best friend is pressured by his girlfriend Sylvia to find a job, but Jim is more interested in hanging out and making cash from small heists, while trying to get a law enforcement job so he can marry his Mexican girlfriend.

Se buscan fulmontis

July 1999 •Spanish

Summer in Berlin

September 2005 •German

When you read the title ‘Summer on the Balcony’ you probably think it will be a light Berlin summer comedy but it’s not. This film is an intimate study of two women friends who come to each other because of troubles with everyday life and with men and thus try to enjoy a life based on their ideas.

You're Not Alone

July 2007 •German

Master painter Hans Moll and his wife, the television announcer Ms. Wellinek and her husband, and the German-Russian Jew Yevgenia have many things to live on: food, drink, an apartment. What they do not have is work. They all discover the yearning for a chance to start all over again and bring themselves back to life.

Money

March 1989 •German

One day, Carmen Müller realizes that her husband Werner has been unemployed for months and has accumulated debts of 80,000 DM in their bank account. She comes up with a plan to rob her bank. When the branch manager and neighbor Lothar Fuchs, whom Carmen has always envied for his beauty and wealth, recognizes her, she takes him hostage. In their hideout in the Allgäu, the banker falls in love with the housewife, just as Werner and Fuchs' mistress Gabriele grow closer. The quartet form an alliance and defraud the bank together. Having come into money so suddenly, the Müllers don't feel comfortable either and secretly distribute their fortune around the neighborhood.

Fou comme François

January 1979 •English

Marseille. The director of a company offers a promotion to Francois (Michel Creton) if he accepts to help him fire all the staff from his office. If he refuses, he will himself be fired. Francois opts for the latter. He registers as unemployed and discovers what he has lacked so far in his life: a certain freedom. His habits are changing as well as his attitude towards the others changes ... Luce (Claude Jade), his wife, and Marquerite (Courtois Queen), her stepmother, are surprised: why he is not himself anymore?

Bonsoir

January 1994 •French

Having first lost his wife then his job as a tweed tailor, Alex Ponttin has devised a novel way to keep himself in touch with society. He admits himself into people's homes, by pretending to be a relative or an official, and persuading his victims to give him a night's free board: He finds at first a lunch at the horrible couple Dumont, where a thief follows him for a robbery. Alex spent an evening in front of TV at Marie, mother of seven children. He runs from Marie to find an evening and a new bed at the home of charming but shy lesbian Caroline and her funny lover Gloria. To save her inheritance, Caroline - accused for her homosexuality by her horrible sister Catherine - tells her aunt Amélie, that Gloria is her secretary and Alex her lover. So Alex has to present himself nude in Caroline's bed. He saves Carolines inheritance. The police officers investigating the case are so terminally stupid that Alex has little chance of being arrested.

The Van

November 1996 •English

In a working-class quarter of Dublin, 'Bimbo' Reeves gets laid off from his job and, with his redundancy payout, buys a van and sells fish and chips with his buddy, Larry. Due to Ireland's surprising success at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, their business starts off well, but the relationship between the two friends soon becomes strained as Bimbo behaves more like a typical boss.

Renaissance Man

June 1994 •English

An advertising man is slowly sliding downhill. When he is fired from his job in Detroit, he signs up for unemployment. One day they find him a job: teaching thinking skills to Army recruits. He arrives on base to find that there is no structure set up for the class.

In the Army Now

August 1994 •English

Bones Conway and Jack Kaufman didn't really know what they were in for when they enlisted in the U.S. Army; they just wanted to get a job and make some money. But these new recruits are so hapless, they run the risk of getting kicked out before their military careers even begin. Soon, though, they're sent to the Middle East to fight for their country -- which they manage to do in their own wacky ways.

Gung Ho

March 1986 •English

When a western Pennsylvania auto plant is acquired by a Japanese company, brokering auto worker Hunt Stevenson faces the tricky challenge of mediating the assimilation of two clashing corporate cultures. At one end is the Japanese plant manager and the sycophant who is angling for his position. At the other, a number of disgruntled long-time union members struggle with the new exigencies of Japanese quality control.

Freddy Got Fingered

April 2001 •English

Unemployed cartoonist Gord Brody moves back in with his parents Jim and Julie and younger brother Freddy. When his parents demand he leave, he retaliates by spreading rumors that Jim is sexually abusing Freddy.

Days and Clouds

October 2007 •Italian

Set in Genoa, the film concerns the financial struggles and emotional strain that occur after Michele loses his job. He and his wife Elsa are forced to give up their affluent lifestyle and cope with the tensions of moving into a smaller home, finding new work, and making sacrifices.

Alone Among Women

November 1991 •German

Tom is a perfect macho, whose prejudices are challenged when he loses his job, his apartment and his girlfriend and has to move in into a house with three feminists. Without his knowing the three start an experiment to convert him into a sensitive person showing respect for women and her problems. Not able to pay his rent Tom is forced to earn it by doing the housework and babysitting. This helps him changing his attitudes towards women and his housemates who at first treated him indifferently, start to fall in love with him.