I became aware of the Chamber of Labour (Arbeiterkammer) during a time that I remember as being very depressing, sociopolitically speaking. It was between 2018 and 2019, when the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) came together to form a governing coalition: an alliance between a radicalized conservative ÖVP (Sebastian Kurz) and an extreme-right FPÖ. What made that period so depressing was the dominance of government policy and the vehemence with which society and the state were being rebuilt along authoritarian lines, against which the opposition parties had nothing of substance to counter. In my view, the only discernible opposition came from civil society and from the policies of trade unions – as well as from the Chamber of Labour.
I knew that the history of the Chamber of Labour is closely linked to that of social democracy in Austria and the trade union movement, and that its achievements have been of great importance to many people. But like most Austrians, I knew almost nothing about the Chamber’s activities, and there was very little literature or film out there about this internationally unique institution. This was appealing to me, because a central aspect of my understanding of documentary film is discovering things I hadn't known before.
My cinematic method when portraying institutions is direct cinema, observational cinema: no staged scenes, no interviews, no explanatory off-camera commentary. Working in this method requires a great deal of time – in research, shooting, and especially in editing – in order to take the work beyond mere depiction. Direct cinema films are journeys of discovery, and with this in mind, I designed the shooting at the Chamber of Labour as an open undertaking. For me, there is nothing more irritating in the field of documentary than “scripted reality” or the concept of the documentary “theme film,” where the film merely shows what it already knew beforehand. For me, a documentary is the exact opposite: it is a confrontation with reality.
In my view, direct cinema doesn’t shy away from paradox and inherently approaches the real in anticipation of the unexpected.
Für die Vielen – Die Arbeiterkammer Wien(For the Many – The Vienna Chamber of Labour) is my third film about a public institution in Austria. The Chamber of Labour in Vienna is not a state institution, strictly speaking, but rather a self-governing, independent organisation. Austrian law stipulates that every salaried employee must contribute a sum from his or her wage towards the financing of the Chamber of Labour – a kind of institutionalised solidarity (not unlike with social insurance). Furthermore, the Chamber of Labour plays an important role as a political lobby within the system of the Austrian welfare state. What perhaps distinguishes it from other political lobbies: that it is an influential think tank while also being close to the everyday lives of working people. From the beginning, it was thus clear to me that Für die Vielen would bring together the stories of the people who turn to the Chamber of Labour with the expertise that makes up this institution.
We began filming in the late fall of 2019. Over the many weeks and months I spent at the Chamber of Labour, the themes and narrative threads of the film crystallised. As with my previous films, I was fascinated by the seemingly infinite array of behaviours that arise in the clash between individual and institution. In my view, direct cinema is particularly insightful for the representation of this normative world because, unlike the usual conventions of documentary, it doesn’t shy away from paradox and inherently approaches the real in anticipation of the unexpected, which always produces an abundance of ambivalence, contradiction, and surprise. When the Covid-19 pandemic began, we were in the middle of filming and were forced to interrupt our work in mid-March 2020. Like the Chamber of Labour itself, we had to respond to the “new reality.” But the gradual onset of the pandemic had by then become part of the film. It was already clear that the direction of this cinematic journey would now be dictated by additional rules.
Constantin Wulff
Translation: Hilda Hoy
