Director Jens Lien is completing post-production on “Joe’s Assignment,” a Norway-Greece co-production exploring societal anxieties around automation and employment. The film stars actor Trond Fausa Aurvåg in the lead role of Joe, an ambulance driver whose job is eliminated by self-driving vehicles. Following his displacement, Joe is enrolled in a government program requiring unemployed citizens to perform mandatory assignments to prevent idleness. The central conflict arises when Joe’s own assignment disappears within the bureaucratic system, prompting him to search for his designated task while encountering increasingly unusual situations.
The screenplay by Per Schreiner frames Joe’s quest as intertwined with broader questions of human purpose, connection and belonging in a world where automation has rendered traditional labor obsolete. Rather than adopting a dystopian or techno-thriller approach, the film uses absurdist humor and bureaucratic limbo to examine these themes from a humanist perspective. Lien describes the project as thematically connected to his earlier work “The Bothersome Man,” though with distinct stylistic differences. The director told industry observers that the film balances existential concerns with warmth and comedy, focusing on human capacity for kindness and meaningful relationships.
The project received backing from the Norwegian Film Institute, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, NRK, Greek broadcaster ERT, and Alto Invest. Principal photography concluded earlier this year, with the production currently in final stages of post-production including sound, music and visual effects work. Completion is targeted for October. The cast includes Agnes Kittelsen, Alba August, Sven Nordin and Atle Antonsen. Producers are planning an international festival premiere strategy before the Norwegian release scheduled for 2027. Scanbox and Ymer hold Nordic distribution rights to the feature.
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