A strange (anti?) road movie, A Steady Job hovers over the comings and goings of a tragically improbable night bus. Trapped in precarious situations, hordes of nurses tirelessly cross the country in a bid to win the rare positions advertised by the large state hospitals in northern Italy. In 2014, a nurse subjected to this cruel lottery decided to set up a system of night bus transport, offering a cheaper alternative to workers prepared to do anything to extricate themselves from precariousness. By filming almost exclusively on the bus, the filmmakers emphasize the violent pressure exerted on the workers' bodies. Despite the fatigue of the journey and the vainness of the process, the nurses study and rehearse the notions they have already mastered in their daily work, in the cruel and illusory hope of being called back for a position that will uproot them from everything they possess.

When we think of the working conditions of our nurses, who are still obliged to fight against the contempt of the government to try and obtain decent working conditions, we can only think of the systemic aspect of this disregard.

Caregivers all over the world are subject to the great laws of capitalism, which have nothing to do with the true value of human life. In other words, everything that is worthwhile: presence, recognition, care, relationship, benevolence, attention to suffering. To recognize this widespread contempt is to acknowledge that the economic system is based on the denial of what keeps us collectively alive. If economic value took into account the value of living things, the whole system would fall apart, and the scales of importance would be turned upside down. For who needs a speculator in the face of childhood, illness and death? Nobody.
 

Naomie Décarie-Daigneault
Tënk's Artistic Director

With the support of