Focus: Funny Business
The Apartment
Billy Wilder
1960 / USA / 2h05 / Age: 12 (14)
A key to social mobility
Hoping for a promotion, C.C. Baxter, a model employee at an insurance company, lends his flat to his superiors, who use it to meet their mistresses. However, when Baxter discovers that his boss has his eye on the woman he secretly loves, his feelings come into conflict with his career ambitions. The Apartment takes the comedy of manners to a level of refinement and precision rarely equalled.
Language: English
Subtitles: French
With: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine & Fred MacMurray
Funny Business
The VIFFF is dedicating its 2026 thematic focus to workplace comedies. From the Industrial Revolution to artificial intelligence, via the rise of office-based employment, the world of work has been constantly changing — with its dreams of progress as well as its disillusionments.
Combining satire of capitalism with a critique of power dynamics, this selection humorously explores the absurdities of our everyday working lives.