The Store

Supermarket employee Eleni gets promoted to the position of store manager. Having learned the rules of a neoliberal economy by day-to-day exposure on the job, she knows that from now on she's forced to push her coworkers harder and harder to deliver ever more in ever less time – which also means that maybe a cashier can't go to the toilet because the queue is too long. And if these workplace pressures mean that one of her colleagues now feels forced to hide her pregnancy for fear of getting fired, then this is just too sad. But who'd want to find oneself among those masses of homeless who live on the supermarket's still edible trash?

The Store is a surprising creation, most obviously due to its mixed nature: a good part of the scenes set in the supermarket are done as puppet animation – a harsh distancing effect that throws the social situation into sharp relief but, paradoxically enough, also elicits deep compassion for the characters. Also, while Eleni might be the key to the story, The Store has masses more on offer, mostly anecdotes, but also character sketches and situational observations that add up to a vast social canvas. A work of serious ambition perfectly delivered!

– Olaf Möller