Claustrophobia

Love is a virus. Its preferred targets of dissemination are small, overcrowded, claustrophobic rooms. Take offices, for example …
Twentysomething Pearl works in marketing. She feels increasingly drawn to her boss, Tom who is a married man and has children. Pearl works pretty long hours for him. Their small team of five spend eight or ten hours a day, five or six days a week, working in small, busy rooms. After work, Pearl usually goes home in Tom’s car together with her colleagues – that’s Karl, who is the department’s pain in the ass, John the brainy one, and Jewel, who loves to flirt. Tom is a great boss: friendly, tolerant and competent. But what really lurks behind his friendly façade is anyone’s guess.
“Is it love?” ponders Pearl. How and when did their normal working relationship turn into a romantic one? What should she do? Her anxiety grows. Until one day, out of the blue, Tom suggests that she applies for another job. Deeply wounded, Pearl wants revenge. And so she insists on him firing her. This is how it ends – in a duel. The sad thing is that it’s such an everyday oc­currence. It seems that John and Jewel have now caught the virus. After­wards, everything goes back to normal for Jewel. Not so for John …
In eight flashbacks the film tells the story of the brief affairs that occur in the tiny universe otherwise known as an office, where two powerful forces are pitted against each other – human resource policy and romance.