The Interview

In the summer of 1996, we filmed application training courses in which one learns how to apply for a job. School drop-outs, university graduates, people who have been re-trained, the long-term unemployed, recovered drug addicts, and mid-level managers – all of them are supposed to learn how to market and sell themselves, a skill to which the term "self management" is applied.

The self is perhaps nothing more than a metaphysical hook from which to hang a social identity. It was Kafka who likened being accepted for a job to entering the Kingdom of Heaven; the paths leading to both are completely uncertain. Today one speaks of getting a job with the greatest obsequiousness, but without any grand expectations.

(Harun Farocki)

Original title Die Bewerbung Director, scriptwriter Harun Farocki Cinematographer Ingo Kratisch Second cinematographer Bernd Löhr Editor Max Reimann Sound Ludger Blanke Music Neil Young Researcher Ludger Blanke Production Harun Farocki Filmproduktion, Berlin, for Süddeutsche Rundfunk, Stuttgart Producer Harun Farocki TV-producer Juliane Endres  Format video-BetaSp, col., 1:1,37 Length 58 min. First broadcast 18.02.1997, arte Note commissioned for the TV series La vie en face / Welt im Blick