As the unemployment statistics start to climb once more, multi-BAFTA-winning filmmaker Brian Woods goes behind the numbers to the people they represent and presents his take on the recession.
Filmed throughout 2009, and seen in part through the eyes of the children, Jobless tells the interwoven stories of several families across the length and breadth of Britain, as both husband and wife cope with losing their jobs, in most cases for the first time in their lives.
Andy and Jackie both worked for a computer printer company in Bracknell. Andy is confident he will soon find something but, as the months pass, the strain starts to show on both adults and children, including their eight-year-old daughter Hannah.
In the North East of England, nine-year-old Leah sums up the world as she see it; ‘I don’t really understand why there isn’t that much money anymore, I only really understand that people are all losing their jobs. Is that the recession?’ As the pressures of unemployment take their toll on her parents’ relationship, and her dad’s temper, Leah observes ‘If I’m naughty then he gets more angry with me that he usually would. But he’s trying to keep himself calm, and I think he’s doing well. I just hope he gets a job.’
And in Enfield, Samantha, also nine, is missing her dad. Both her parents lost their jobs of 20+ years when the car parts company they worked for, originally part of Ford, filed for bankruptcy. But rather than meekly walking away, Samantha’s dad, along with several hundred others, occupied the plant, demanding that Ford honour their original severance terms.
This gently-observed documentary takes us inside the experience of losing the thing most of us use to define ourselves.
Director: Brian Woods. Broadcast on BBC Tue. 9 Mar 2010.
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