One of the clearest themes at the 2025 Venice Film Festival was criticism of the capitalist order. Film critic Irina Karpova highlights several titles from the main competition and side sections that deal with exploitation, poverty, fear of social decline and the clash between individuals and the system.
Factory work, layoffs and gig labor
In the Bulgarian film Made in EU by Stefan Komandarev, Iva, a seamstress played by Gergana Pletneva, keeps going to work with a fever because losing her bonus would mean losing half her salary. After contracting COVID-19, she is branded the source of the outbreak and turned into an outcast. Karpova describes the film as a powerful statement about provincial unemployment, fear of emigration and dependence on a town’s only employer.
In No Other Choice by Park Chan-wook, the protagonist Man Su, played by Lee Byung-hun, loses his job at a pulp and paper mill and decides to eliminate his rivals in order to preserve his standard of living. In the critic’s view, the film blends satire and black comedy and could become an awards-season contender, including possible bids for the Oscar and the Golden Lion.
The French film At Work by Valerie Donzelli, based on Frank Court’s autobiographical novel, follows Paul, a photographer who burns out and starts taking odd jobs worth 10 to 20 euros. Even literary recognition and publication by Gallimard do not free him from hardship: he keeps working through an app and driving a taxi.
Disappearances on a building site and a hostage in an office
In the French-Japanese film Grand Ciel by Akihiro Hata, construction worker Vincent reacts to the disappearance of laborers at a high-rise site. The contractor offers only temporary contracts to block union involvement, while the suffocating dust and cracking tower are read by the critic as a metaphor for indifference to human loss.
Karpova calls Dead Man's Wire by Gus Van Sant the most unexpected entry. Based on events from 1977, it stars Bill Skarsgard as bankrupt Indianapolis businessman Tony Kiritsis, who blames his creditors and takes Richard Hall, played by Dacre Montgomery, hostage. In her reading, the film is not only about private revenge but also about how police, media and the public respond when capital, ambition and a demand for justice collide.