How Long Is “The Human Resources Manager”?

A mid-level businessman learns something about human nature and himself when he's given an unusual assignment in this comedy drama from Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis. Yulia (Galina Ozerner) is a longtime employee at a major baking company in Jerusalem, but when she stops coming to work, it's two weeks before anyone thinks to look into her absence. As it happens, Yulia, a Russian émigré, died in a politically oriented bombing, and a journalist covering the story is preparing an inflammatory piece that criticizes the bakery for their lack of compassion toward an employee. The situation becomes all the more embarrassing when it's discovered Yulia had been fired from her job but was still getting paid thanks to the actions of an employee who fancied her. Determined to keep the bakery from getting a black eye in the press, the owner of the company (Gila Almagor) orders her human resources manager (Mark Ivanir) to pick up Yulia's remains and escort them back to her family in Russia. As the manager meets a variety of people who had some connection with Yulia, it forces him to think about his own relationships with others and the ways he's disappointed his own wife and children. The Human Resources Manager was an official selection at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.