Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day1972-1973

Director
Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Actors

Gottfried John (Jochen Epp)
Wolfrid Lier (Wolf Epp)
Irm Hermann (Irmgard Erlkoenig)
Anita Bucher (Kaethe Epp)
Werner Finck (Gregor Mack)
Hanna Schygulla (Marion Andreas)

In a world ruled by bosses and routines, Jochen learns that even ordinary life can become a quiet revolution.
In West Germany, young toolmaker Jochen falls in love with office worker Marion while trying to secure fair treatment at the factory where he works. He is a man with strong ideas about justice, dignity, and everyday life, and his relationships with his coworkers, his family, and his superiors gradually draw him into a wider social struggle. At the center of the story is a desire for something very simple and very human: respect, love, and a fair chance to live decently.
Commissioned to make a working-class family drama for public television, up-and-coming director Rainer Werner Fassbinder took the assignment and ran, dodging expectations by depicting social realities in West Germany from a critical—yet far from cynical—perspective. Rarely screened since its popular but controversial initial broadcast, this series is a true discovery, one of Fassbinder’s earliest and most tender experiments with the possibilities of melodrama.
“With this miniseries, Fassbinder delivers not just masterful television, but a true masterpiece of television and visual storytelling.” – Pressplay
“Fassbinder’s early, populist television feels incredibly refreshing and not at all dated: West German TV audiences had never seen so much subversion during prime time!” – Kino-Zeit
“’Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day’ is Rainer Werner Fassbinder through and through.” – Moveibreak.de