Joseph Marti is an unremarkable bookbinder who quits his job when a supervisor shoves a badly-glued book in his face. Yet it seems that it doesn't really matter whether he comes to work or not. Time is also irrelevant and shifts imperceptibly from the present to the past. Joseph is transported to an early 20th century villa in the suburbs where he is employed as an assistant to the inventor, engineer Tobler. There he gradually becomes a factotum: he is placed in charge of the bookkeeping and the correspondence, and gains the confidence of the lady of the house. He obediently does everything he is told. It seems increasingly unlikely that Tobler will ever achieve his ambitious business plans. The family's financial situation becomes desperate. In the face of growing tension in the Toblers' marriage and the abuse to which he is exposed, Joseph decides to leave. Original Title Człowiek do wszystkiego Year of production 2025 Length 124' CountriesPoland/UK Shooting Format Super 16 mm Aspect Ratio1.65:1 Dialogue Polish Directors Wilhelm Sasnal and Anka Sasnal Producers Wilhelm Sasnal, Sadie Coles HQ Co-Financed Production Polish Film Institute Executive Producers Luna Film - Ewa Przywara, Pawel Przywara Production Managers Ewa Przywara, Pawel Przywara Cinematographer Wilhelm Sasnal Sound Design Michal Fojcik MPSE Editor Aleksandra Gowin Production Design Ewelina Gasior Costume Design Kinga Naszkiewicz Make-Up Artist Anka Zygmuntowicz (Warot) Music Amateur Hour, Blod, ESG, Galaxie 500, Kryzys, LA Vampires, The Advisory Circle, The Smiths Cast Piotr Trojan, Andrzej Konopka, Agnieszka Zulewska, Juliusz Chrzastowski, Roman Gancarczyk, Ewa Kolasinska, Michal Majnicz, Aleksandra Nowosadko, Marta Ojrzynska, Malgorzata Zawadzka
The film is based on the novel "The Assistant” by Swiss writer Robert Walser, published in 1908.
Festival selections International Film Festival of Rotterdam 2025, Netherlands - World Premiere Director's Statement The screenplay is based on Der Gehülfe, a novel by Swiss writer Robert Walser, published in English under the title The Assistant. Its protagonist is to some extent modeled on Walser himself, who had earned his living as a civil servant, a copy clerk, and as an all-around assistant in rich households, until the menial and alienating task of copying documents, combined with recurring anxiety attacks led him to suffer a mental breakdown that led him to be confined in a mental hospital. It was there that Walser produced his trademark “micrograms” – nearly indecipherable texts with letters that were, on average, two millimeters tall. Like Kafka, to whom he has often been compared, Walser's difficult prose has since inspired scholars of literature and artists alike. Intrigued by the possibility of reinterpreting this book similarly to the way I often paint over my canvases, I rewrote Walser's semi-autobiographical tale in the form of a screenplay. This film is the next step in my “repainting” of the story. Factotum is about how people come to feel a sense of belonging in a new place and connectedness with the people they encounter there. But the connections Joseph makes in his new home – and place of work – are not equally beneficial to all the parties concerned. While Joseph's presence is appreciated by both the lady of the house, who treats him as a companion and confidante, and by his employer, the inventor Tobler, who needs someone to carry out his instructions and believe in his business ventures, this comes at a cost: Joseph ends up surrendering his freedom and serving his master and mistress like a faithful dog. He is not even paid a salary in exchange for his devotion – all he gets is bed and board and the sense that he is part of the household. For Joseph, the desire to belong is stronger than his need to be free, and that exposes him to emotional dependence. Joseph is always trying to second-guess the mood of his master and mistress so as to anticipate their every desire. He has sworn absolute obedience to them: always keeping his thoughts in check and chastising himself at the slightest hint of insubordination. But there comes a time when the humiliation becomes too much to bear. When Tobler shoves him, Joseph walks out on his employer, just as he'd left his previous job at a bookbinding workshop after his supervisor insulted him and hit him in the face with a book. He will no doubt go on to find another job and another master elsewhere, and the cycle of attraction and repulsion will begin anew. Engineer Tobler is an equally tragic and no less intriguing figure. Preoccupied with his great inventions – an “advertising clock” and a can opener – he seems at once a patriarchal tyrant who bosses around everyone in the house and a man whom only success in business can save from the depths of despair. The engineer's bluster is both comical and tragic. This is evident at the reception he organises, at which he unveils an artist's “invention” instead of presenting his own prototypes. With creditors at the door and investors backing out, there is no chance that Tobler's fortunes will ever improve. While Joseph still has a chance of finding a better master one day, his departure will be the last straw in the engineer's downfall. To show that the world is governed by the same mechanisms in every era, we have plucked the protagonist from the present day and placed him in a turn-of-the-century setting where he has to face the same fears and uncertainty as regards his work and what the future holds. Robert Walser himself was committed to an asylum following an anxiety attack and hallucinations during which he heard voices that accused him of being lazy. Now that ever more people have little chance of finding stable employment, economic precarity is a growing challenge for individuals and society as a whole. Joseph's story demonstrates that the past is never really over and that the passage of time doesn't change anything. The world of the Tobler family – their mutual relations, and their private and professional desires – is still relevant today. That world can be depicted using various idioms: in the form of a novel, a screenplay, a painting or a film. The roles that people are given to play are always essentially the same – it is just the setting and the costume that changes.
