Essential Cinema: Frederick Wiseman: Eight Systems
WELFARE
Directed by Frederick Wiseman
USA, 1975, 2h 47min, DCP
AFS Cinema
6406 N I-35 Suite 3100 Austin, TX 78752
Pricing
$13.50 evening / $11 matinee (available M-F for shows before 6 PM)
$4 discounts for AFS MAKE & WATCH members. Free for LOVE & Impact Circle members.
Discounts for AISD educators and local high school & college students are available at the box office with a valid school ID.
“The psychology of poverty has rarely been so well depicted, along with the inadequacy of the bureaucracy itself.”
—The New Yorker
“One of Frederick Wiseman’s strongest documentaries.”
—The Chicago Reader
“WELFARE can feel both dark and funny, but it’s always very human.”
—Vox
The welfare system, centered around a governmental welfare agency, is shown from its bureaucracy on down to the recipients of aid who have the most profound needs for assistance. As good and decent people suffer and strive, the specter of regulations and laws, always shifting and barely understood by anyone, hangs over them. Newly restored.
