The working class goes to paradise | Praca a Film

Awarded the Palme d'Or at Cannes, “The Working Class Goes to Paradise” is one of the most uncompromising, rebellious and darkly humorous Italian political films of the 1970s.

Screening on 20 October as part of the Work a Film series organized by Kinoteka and the National Agreement of Trade Unions. After the session, there will be a discussion with experts and trade unionists.

Director Elio Petri takes the hell of tape work to the workshop and mercilessly accounts for industrial capitalism, in which man is reduced to the role of a replaceable part of a machine. An outstanding, downright insane creation is created here by the legendary actor Gian Maria Volonté as Lulù — a pioneer of work whose accident at the machine pushes him to the brink of madness and encourages rebellion.

It is a cinema that does not take prisoners: it pushes the aggressive visual form of Luigi Kuveiller into the armchair, hypnotizes with the soundtrack of Ennio Morricone and impresses with its raw, merciless realism. Petri shot scenes in the authentic factory occupied by workers at the time in Novara, involving real workers as extras. This is a predatory, provocative satire from the top of the European author's cinema.

Organizers: Kinoteka, National Trade Union Agreement
Partner: Rose Foundation Luxembourg
Patronage: Ignacy Daszyński Center, Spoilermaster — podcast to listen to after the screening