Follows the lives of an unemployed drunk and his son as they struggle to adapt to each other.
David is depressed and has lost his job. Joana works all day and takes care of their children, Rafael and Maria, when she gets home. David has lost hope, lost all motivation. Joana has to hold on, she has to be patient. But some time has passed... and it's starting to be too much.
Shuhei is leading a tough life. His alcoholic mother Akiko can only hook up with bad guys and order Shuhei to go get money from his disapproving grandparents instead of going to school. Except raising the little half-sister, his rock-bottom life seems to have no end.
Jeannette is a single mother living in a working-class community in Marseilles; she tries to support herself and her two kids on her salary as a check-out girl at a supermarket and lives in an apartment complex where everyone is thrown into close proximity with everyone else. Marius is working as a security guard at a cement factory that has gone out of business; he's also squatting in the building, since the plant is soon to be demolished and he'll be needing his money later on. One day, Jeannette happens by the factory, and spotting several cans of paint, tries to take two of them home with her. Marius spots her and tries to chase her away, while she rails at him with curses against the capitalist system. The next day, an apologetic Marius appears at her doorstep, cans of paint in hand; the two soon become friendly, and a romance begins to bloom, though it quickly becomes obvious that Jeannette's romance novel fantasies are a bit off the mark from what Marius has in mind.
Three educated but unemployed youth who have come to live in a bustling, harsh metropolis struggle to earn a living.
France, a factory worker, lives with her three daughters in Dunkirk. The factory where she worked has been closed, leaving France and all of her workmates without a job. She decides to go to Paris to look for work. There she finds a cleaning job at the home of a rich man, Steve, whose world is radically different from her own. As their paths keep crossing, she discovers that her employer played a part in closing the factory in Dunkirk...
Fazia is a middle-aged cleaning woman. She appears tired and burdened by personal troubles. For the past few months, she has been starting her days working for the Martin-Pelissard family, a petty bourgeois household reluctant to officially declare her employment. One morning, an unexpected incident heightens the social pressure she endures daily, setting off a race against time to try and keep her job.
Nicole and her son Serge live in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburbs, where their love for each other thrives against all odds. But as Christmas approaches, Nicole has her checkbook and credit card confiscated, turning their relationship and their lives upside down.
Proud, though poor, Bob wants his little girl to have a beautiful (and costly) brand-new dress for her First Communion. His stubbornness and determination get him into trouble as he turns to increasingly questionable measures, in his desperation to raise the needed money. This tragic flaw leads him to risk all that he loves and values, his beloved family, indeed even his immortal soul and salvation, in blind pursuit of that goal.
The story of an asylum seeker in England who, when confronted with the hostile immigration system in the UK, is forced to live on the fringes of society and rely on his bike to survive. Based on the lived experience of co-writer Ayman Alhussein.
A young Tamil-postgraduate, frustrated with the circumstances and futility of his job, slowly loses his mental balance and becomes a sociopath.
Hae-Gon, Joon-Hyung and Hak-Rak are everyday guys, working at a local taxi company. Men of marked individuality, many wonder how they keep company with each other. After a bulky day of work, one and only diversion they can share is drinking in a local bar with silly jokes. Discontented with their miserable life, they finally decide to do something big, which they believe this is very and last opportunity to take an abrupt turn of their life. However, their plan makes a wrong turn, just like their pathetic life.
Premier degré
A story about a couple from the bottom of the social ladder, about smuggling refugees across borders and other 'suspect' things- it is, first and foremost, an attempt to tell a story about the worst in people, wherever they may be coming from.
After being fired from his bull breeding job without proper compensation, Franco steals a world-class bull from his former employer and smuggles it to Hungary, planning to sell it for a large sum of money.
Two women love the same man in a world of few prospects. In Budapest, Liliom is a "public figure," a rascal who's a carousel barker, loved by the experienced merry-go-round owner and by a young, innocent maid. The maid, Julie, loses her job after going out with Liliom; he's fired by his jealous employer for going out with Julie. The two lovers move in with Julie's aunt; unemployment emasculates him and a local weasel tempts him with crime. Julie, now wan, is true to Liliom even in his bad temper. Meanwhile, a stolid widower, a carpenter, wants to marry Julie. Is there any future on this earth for Julie and Liliom, whose love is passionate rather than ideal?
A family tragedy during the recession of 2008, catalyzed by unemployment, personal crisis, and illness.
Subscribed to odd jobs despite his diplomas, David, pushed by his girlfriend Aurore, sets out to look for a new job. She is in fact coping more and more poorly with the difficult ends of the month... Luck seems to smile on them since a few days later, Lucie, director of a photo lab, agrees, despite the applicant's overqualification, to hire David, whose technical knowledge dazzled her... When he announces the good news to Aurore, the latter seems strangely disillusioned. David had promised him never to touch a camera again.
A young Pakistani Briton manages a rundown laundrette with his lover while dealing with tension in his family, the local Pakistani community, and a persistent mob of skinheads.
This drama centers on Hank Chinaski, the fictional alter-ego of "Factotum" author Charles Bukowski, who wanders around Los Angeles, CA trying to live off jobs which don't interfere with his primary interest, which is writing. Along the way, he fends off the distractions offered by women, drinking and gambling.