Mandatory Training

synopsis

A short socially-critical mosaic shot on 16mm film explores how much the way of thinking has changed in Western society in the past few decades, wondering whether equality and diversity are a matter of course, or whether they are still just meaningless words. Patrick Tarrant’s films juxtapose excerpts from white magazines from the past century and machine voice-over segments of an online learning module on equality, inclusion and diversity for present-day employees.

 

"Mandatory Training is a slightly ornery reaction to being forced to complete computer-based training and tests on matters that range from the banal to the ideological. For better or worse, if you answer wrongly on a question relating to race or gender, for example, you can, as the module explains, keep repeating the test until you pass."

biography

Patrick Tarrant (1969), a film director, researcher and lecturer at London South Bank University, comes from Melbourne, Australia. He has written about portraits of prominent filmmakers such as Pedro Costa or Ben Rivers and authored meditative films and film essays inspired by the atmosphere of cities and their peripheries (The Take-Up, 2014; The Trembling Giant, 2016).

more about film

director:	Patrick Tarrant
producer:	Patrick Tarrant