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PRESS PRESS PRESS PRESS CONTACTCONTACTCONTACTCONTACT Sharad Kalawar Future East Film 8 Carmichael Road Bombay/ Mumbai 400026. INDIA [T] (91.22) 2352.4576 [F] (91.22) 2352.5310 [email protected]
INTERNATIONAL SALESINTERNATIONAL SALESINTERNATIONAL SALESINTERNATIONAL SALES
Annie Roney Ro*co Films International 20 Hillcrest Rd. Tiburon California 94920 USA [T] (415) 435-4631 [F] (415) 435-4691 [email protected]
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
CREDITSCREDITSCREDITSCREDITS
Director Ashim Ahluwalia
Production Company Future East Film Associate Producers Shumona Goel
Ashim Ahluwalia Executive Producer
Anand Tharaney Camera Mohanan
Mukul Kishore Location Sound Mohandas
Editor Ashim Ahluwalia Associate Editors Shai Heredia
Meghana Manchanda Music Masta’ Justy
Metamatics Thomas Brinkmann Minamo
Sound Design Ashim Ahluwalia Sound Engineering Tarun Bhandari
FEATURINGFEATURINGFEATURINGFEATURING
Glen Glen Castinho Sydney Sydney Fernandes Osmond Oaref Irani Nikki
Vandana Malwe Nicholas Nikesh Soares Naomi Namrata Pravin Parekh
TECHNICAL DETAILSTECHNICAL DETAILSTECHNICAL DETAILSTECHNICAL DETAILS
INDIA 2005, 35mm, 1:1.85, Colour, Dolby SRD, 83 mins Language: English
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
SYNOPSISSYNOPSISSYNOPSISSYNOPSIS
In vast, fluorescent rooms, thousands of ambitious young Indians talk to people in Kentucky, California or Idaho. Bridging continents by telephone, they pitch products and soothe frayed consumer nerves. As they troubleshoot, they dream of America. As they dream, they change. What is it like to transport yourself to a remote land you've never even seen? How does it feel to live so far outside your own body? Welcome to the world of offshore call centres. John & Jane is an astonishing look at the souls of the outsourced. Shot on 35mm and composed with unsettling grace, this documentary finds an entirely original and fitting language to express the eerie dislocation of virtual work. The lives it depicts are real, but the film's approach gives those lives the scope of speculative fiction. Glen and Sydney have taken Western names, partly for convenience, partly for their own pleasure. They sleep during the daytime and work in the middle of their night, following American business hours. Neither of them has ever left India. As part of their training, they learn the meanings that work, money and God hold for Americans. In classes that could be read as satire or tragedy, they study shopping flyers as though they were textbooks. Some begin to adopt American values as their own. One dreams of buying his own Spanish-style villa. Another notes, "Everyone who's ever gone to America gets rich." When their shifts end, Glen and Sydney go back to traditional Indian homes, with simple amenities and mothers who urge them to eat. Director Ashim Ahluwalia builds a story of transformation that becomes more and more engrossing - yet Naomi still comes as a surprise. Blonde down to her eyelashes, she speaks with a kind of cyborg-Midwest accent. "I'm totally very Americanized," she asserts. Ahluwalia's resonant portrait shows Naomi and her coworkers to be products of America, yes, but also of India and of their own satellite fantasies. ---- Cameron Bailey, Cameron Bailey, Cameron Bailey, Cameron Bailey, Toronto International Film Festival 2005Toronto International Film Festival 2005Toronto International Film Festival 2005Toronto International Film Festival 2005
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
SHORT SYNOPSISSHORT SYNOPSISSHORT SYNOPSISSHORT SYNOPSIS A fresh new blend of observational documentary and tropical science-fiction, JOHN & JANE follows the stories of six “call agents” that answer American 1-800 numbers in a Mumbai call center. After a heady mix of American “culture training” and 14 hour night shifts, the job soon starts to take its toll. Counter pointing the fluorescent interiors of late night offices and hyper-malls with the uneasy currents swirling around the characters, JOHN & JANE discovers a young generation of urban Indians that are beginning to live between the real and the virtual. However, this futuristic world of American aliases and simulated reality is not science fiction, these are the times in which we live. JOHN & JANE raises disturbing questions about the nature of personal identity and what it means to be “Indian” in a 21st century globalised world.
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
FILMMAKERFILMMAKERFILMMAKERFILMMAKER’S’S’S’S STATEMENT STATEMENT STATEMENT STATEMENT
I first heard about call centers in 2001. There had already been some TV documentaries and news reports on the subject, but most of these were occupied with business advantages and technological growth. Nobody seemed to be curious about the kind of people who worked there; for me, the idea of virtual “call agents” with fake identities seemed like science fiction. Who were these Indians that became “Americans” at night? I grew up in Bombay in the ‘70s and ‘80s which was a different place. There was one B&W channel on television, and you had to book a “trunk call” a couple of hours in advance to dial internationally. India mainly exchanged technology with the Russians and Coca - Cola wasn’t available -- only the Indian version, Thums Up! I went abroad to study for a few years and returned in the ‘90s to a new, post-liberalized Bombay – now Mumbai. The socialist feel was gone, and there were new landscapes of malls and multiplexes. The government had finally opened the country to investment and people were having their first taste of McDonald’s. I wanted to document this transition, because I knew this awkward moment would not last very long. Like elsewhere in Asia, this universe of Amway and discount coupons would soon become commonplace. Shooting a film set in a call center seemed like a natural way of looking at this new generation – future Indians who live in India and abroad simultaneously. What we discovered while making this film was incredible – characters who had a hard time separating the real from the virtual. The strange nature of this world of replicas dictated the structure of the film. It seemed meaningless to make a cinema-verite portrait of a call agent, who fakes his identity -- that’s fiction already! It also seemed futile to focus on just one character, when the agents already exist in the most fragmentary ways: One collects only names, the other only numerical data, etc. Since the call center functions like a hive, with agents assigned to teams and leaders, it seemed more appropriate to make a film about a network of individuals – six, the number in a team. In the film, there are 3 sets of Johns & Janes – who appear in order of their team’s ranking. In that sense, the film documents the transition from Indian (worst sales ranking) to American (highest sales). The cosmos of call centers was weirder than we imagined. Shooting inside was not easy, particularly with a 35mm camera and very heavy restrictions on what we were allowed to shoot. Shooting video would have been much easier, but we gained something interesting by choosing to shoot film and shooting static, rather than hand-held. The film feels almost fictional at times – and makes you wonder what kind of “documentary” this is.
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERABOUT THE FILMMAKERABOUT THE FILMMAKERABOUT THE FILMMAKER
ASHIM AHLUWALIAASHIM AHLUWALIAASHIM AHLUWALIAASHIM AHLUWALIA Ashim Ahluwalia was born in Bombay, India in 1972. He studied film at Bard College in New York. In 1999, Ahluwalia set up Film Republic, dedicated to producing Indian independent cinema outside the traditional “Bollywood” system. A year later, Ahluwalia completed THIN AIR, a documentary that followed the lives of three magicians against the backdrop of contemporary Bombay. The film won the Best Film Award at Film South Asia. Its radical treatment of the documentary form prompted The Times of India to write: “… films like THIN AIR are redefining the sub-continental documentary… ” FILMOGRFILMOGRFILMOGRFILMOGRAPHYAPHYAPHYAPHY John & Jane, 2005 (Best Film Award – Dialogue Prize/ European Media Art Festival) (Winner of Jury Award – VC Filmfest) (Honourable mention – Maysles Brothers Award) (Best non-fiction film – National Film Award) Thin Air, 2000 (Best Film Award/ Film South Asia)
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
ABOUT THE CREWABOUT THE CREWABOUT THE CREWABOUT THE CREW
MOHANAN MOHANAN MOHANAN MOHANAN Director of Photography Mohanan is one of India’s new generation of cinematographers. His projects have spanned a wide range - from art house films like Mani Kaul’s Naukar Ki Kameez to high end commercials and Bollywood films.
MUKUL KISHOREMUKUL KISHOREMUKUL KISHOREMUKUL KISHORE Director of Photography
Avijit Mukul Kishore is a cinematographer based in Mumbai. He is a graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. He has worked mainly on documentary films. He has shot one feature film, works with visual artists on video-art installations and recently made his first film as director, “Snapshots From A Family Album”.
MOHANDAS MOHANDAS MOHANDAS MOHANDAS Sound
Mohandas studied sound recording and sound engineering at the Film and Television Institute of India. He has worked on numerous feature films, short films, documentaries, television serials and game shows. He is currently working on a documentary on gold workers in Kerela.
TARUN BHANDARITARUN BHANDARITARUN BHANDARITARUN BHANDARI Sound
Tarun graduated from the School of Audio Engineering, London, in 1995. He subsequently worked with IBF, a subsidiary of Paramount, before going freelance. He has since engineered albums, West End theatre (Cats, Blood Brothers, Grease) as well as numerous films. His last project was the epic Bollywood film “Rang De Basanti.”
MASTA’ JUSTYMASTA’ JUSTYMASTA’ JUSTYMASTA’ JUSTY Original Music Masta’ Justy is Jatin Vidhyarthi –composer, producer and DJ. He works primarily with electronic textures, building abstract soundscapes for films, installations and digital art projects. He was co-founder of Bhavishyavani, India’s first electronic music collective, and has been invited to DJ his unique mix of Indian electronica around the world.
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
SHAI HEREDIASHAI HEREDIASHAI HEREDIASHAI HEREDIA Associate Editor
Shai studied film at Goldsmiths College, London. She established Filter India, a platform for experimental filmmakers in India. She has curated Experimenta, India’s first festival for experimental cinema for the past 3 years. She lives and works in Bombay, where she teaches film studies, produces and directs short films and videos.
MMMMEGHANA MANCHANDAEGHANA MANCHANDAEGHANA MANCHANDAEGHANA MANCHANDA Associate Editor Meghana’s first full-length film was “John & Jane”. Soon after, she was chosen to edit ‘Omkara’, a Bollywood adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello. A moody and carefully paced film, its editing style is a fresh departure from most Bollywood extravaganzas. ANAND THARANEYANAND THARANEYANAND THARANEYANAND THARANEY Executive Producer
Anand Tharaney worked with Film Republic as their in-house executive producer between 2002 -2004. During this time, he oversaw numerous documentary projects for the company including THE VULTURES (co-produced with The Discovery Channel) as well as ASIAN VIBES, commissioned for French television.
MINAMOMINAMOMINAMOMINAMO Music The electro-acoustic group MINAMO was formed in 1999 by Keiichi Sugimoto and Tetsuro Yasunaga. Their first album was self-released in 2000, and they have released six albums since. Minamo create a universe that is entirely their own, fusing electronic atmospheres, psychedelic, folk, and free improvisation. THOMAS BRINKMANN THOMAS BRINKMANN THOMAS BRINKMANN THOMAS BRINKMANN Music Thomas Brinkmann is a highly regarded German producer of minimal techno music. Experimenting with records since the early eighties, Brinkmann founded the Ernst record label and introduced his own productions on a series of 12" records taking their titles from female names. The track “Olga A1” features in the final nighclub sequence of “John & Jane.”
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
CALL CENTER FACTSCALL CENTER FACTSCALL CENTER FACTSCALL CENTER FACTS
� ”Whether you know it or not, when you call Delta Airlines, American Express, Sprint, Citibank, IBM or Hewlett Packard's technical support number, chances are you'll be talking to an Indian.” www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/23/60minutes/main590004.shtml
� “Call centres work 24 hours in a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year…holidays are on the Fourth of July, not during prominent festivals or national holidays of India.” Geeta Seshu - www.indiaresource.org/issues/globalization/2003/midnightcoolies.html
� “According to McKinsey & Co., human resource costs in India are 70-80 % less than in US and UK.” Geeta Seshu - www.indiaresource.org/issues/globalization/2003/midnightcoolies.html
� “For many companies, the entire call center environment constantly functions as a sort of perpetual bubble of quasi American-ness. Some centers hang American flags around telephone stations, some continue to screen Men in Black, Pretty Women, and other assorted Hollywood blockbusters and Fox TV sitcoms on a weekly basis for their employees' continued cultural exposure. And many offer their staff free coffee from a store like Barista, India's latest ultra-hip urban chain that bears an eerie resemblance to our American favorite, Starbucks.“ Priya Lal - www.popmatters.com/columns/lal/030820.shtml
� “Many end up marrying someone within the office, and managers oblige by giving the same shift, etc. “ Geeta Seshu - www.indiaresource.org/issues/globalization/2003/midnightcoolies.html
� “Every Saturday morning, Dr. S. Kalyanasundaram knows whom to expect at the psychiatric clinic he runs at Shanthi nursing home in Jayanagar, Bangalore. It’s the technology crowd, and their complaints tend to be of a similar nature: stress, panic attacks, depression, relationship troubles, alcoholism and eating disorders....”””” LA Times - www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001868.html
� “The London Guardian reveals that employees are so closely monitored that even going to the bathroom can affect their pay, which is often linked to their job performance. "In call centers, a half-hour lunch break and two fifteen-minute snack breaks each day are considered a generous benefit," the paper notes.” Amitabh Pal - www.thesouthasian.org/archives/000315.html
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
REVIEWSREVIEWSREVIEWSREVIEWS
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
Inside a Mumbai Call Center
Indian by Day, American by Night By Susan Stone
A new documentary turns the camera on India's prosperous call center
industry -- ground zero in the international debate over outsourcing and
globalization. Call center workers are asked to adopt Western accents and personas, but are they putting their lives on hold?
Nikki Cooper loves her job. She sells low-priced,
long-distance phone plans to people in the United
States -- and she feels like she is really helping
people.
Meanwhile, ambitious Osmond is already making a
list of the things he would like to buy when he gets
rich: first a motorcycle, then a BMW and eventually
a villa in faraway Spain. He knows that each Amway product he sells will get him
one step closer to realizing his consumer fantasies.
Cheery Nicholas, who met his wife at work, says he wouldn't change a thing. This
is despite the fact that the couple have opposite shifts and only get about 20
minutes together a day, which they often spend at the local McDonald's. Fast food
for a fast new world.
Nikki, Osmond, and Nicholas epitomize the American spirit -- they are hard-
working, career obsessed and driven by consumer desires. But in reality, this isn't
how they started life -- all have new personas that they have adopted as part of
their jobs in India's call centers. Before adopting their new American skins, they
were Vandana, Oaref and Nikesh. Teachers armed with catalogs and snapshots of
shopping malls helped them to adopt Western personalities in order to make
them more successful call center workers. Americans and Europeans are unhappy
that local call center jobs have been relocated to lower wage countries, and the
more Western the call center workers seem, the less likely they are to get any
friction from the other end of the line.
The call center workers are the subjects of Indian filmmaker Ashim Ahluwalia's
new documentary "John & Jane Toll Free," which puts faces to the voices
Europeans and Americans often get when they call customer service and are
patched through to an Indian call center. The film recently screened at the Berlin
International Film Festival and will run in New York later this month and
eventually on the cable channel HBO in the United States.
It's estimated that 400,000 Indians are employed by the multi-billion dollar call
center industry, where they serve as a telephone-wielding army standing by to
answer questions and complaints from consumers in the United States and
Britain. India's educated, English-speaking workforce has been a big draw for
business process outsourcing, or 'BPO' firms, and economists point to call centers
as one of the success stories of globalization.
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
Blurring identities and social alienation
Ahluwalia says he began following media reports about the growing call center
service industry in 2001. After absorbing an avalanche of positive, "this is great
for business," stories in the Indian press, Ahluwalia decided to step back,
examine the human impact and explore how a new generation of Indian workers
is straddling nationalities -- living as Indians by day and as Americans at the call
center by night. "For me it was always about these characters and the transitional
lives they lead as Americans by night and Indians by day," Ahluwalia told
SPIEGEL ONLINE.
In preparation for filming, Ahluwalia spent a year following 45 call center workers
with a video camera. In the end, he settled on six subjects -- a small team of
"Johns" and "Janes" -- for his film, which is as much about the blurring of
identities, social alienation and the upheaval caused by globalization, as it is
about call centers.
Ahluwalia's call center workers are living virtual lives over the electronic signal
exchange as self-created avatars, basking in the blue glow of monitors at the call
center in the futuristic "Fourth Dimension" building in Mumbai. "It reminds me of
one of those 1970s science fiction B movies you would see as a kid, like
'Brainstorm'," he says. "Their lives are closer to science fiction."
Mumbai (Bombay), where the documentary is set, is one of epicenters of the
cultural and economic shift globalization is creating in India. It's also a city of
contrasts -- modern buildings and highways are sprouting up, but if you drive
through the urban area in one of the old Fiats that is common here, you're likely
to have to dodge livestock or other animals in the roadway. The scenes here are
a mix of "Blade Runner" and the impoverished landscape of India's rural farmers.
But it's the new Indian fantasy landscape of high tech and consumer culture that
dominates in "John & Jane Toll Free." "I might be the last guy who's nostalgic,"
Ahluwalia says wryly. He says most people are happy to move on, leaving behind
Third World images of cows on the streets.
But India's transformation is one that is happening in fits and starts. Studies
suggest the country may be running out of friendly voices to fuel the growth of
the call center industry. A report released in December 2005 by global consulting
firm McKinsey and Indian IT watch group NASSCOM warns that fewer and fewer
educated English-speaking workers are available to do these jobs. In an unusual
twist in globalization, some Indian call centers have even begun recruiting
European and Scandinavian college graduates to spend a year getting work
experience in New Delhi or Mumbai. Pay is decent and the cost of living is low.
Technovate eSolutions in New Delhi boasts that 10 percent of its call center
workers are from the European Community.
At the end of "John & Jane," we meet Naomi (formerly Namrata), who has wavy
blonde locks and an English rose complexion. Although she looks like she has
bleached her skin and hair, she won't discuss it. Naomi is in the final stage of the
process of Westernization that Ahluwalia has documented with his film. "I'm very
Americanized," she says in a strange accent that seems vaguely Texan. Namrata,
it seems, is an identity lost to the forces of globalization in the new India, with its
skyscrapers, call centers and consumerism.
"A lot of people say, 'Oh, it's so sad, they're losing their identity, can't they go
back to a time of Indian tradition?'" says Ahluwalia. "But we were colonized for
200 years. What are they going to go back to?" The call center workers may have
to give up a part of themselves, but in the end they get well paying jobs, safer
workplaces and opportunities in a country that is plagued with abject poverty.
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
FUTURE EAST FILM 8 Carmichael Road Bombay (Mumbai) 400026. INDIA. [T] +91.22.2352.4576 [www] FUTUREEAST.COM
Fest Dispatch: Young Americans in Toronto; from
Canada to India, New York to Los Angeles by Anthony Kaufman (September 14, 2005)
Those living in the United States often forget that “America” encompasses a much
wider swath of territory than the 50 states. There’s Canada, of course. And even
in certain parts of India the residents call themselves “American.” For powerful
evidence, see Ashim Ahluwalla’s “John & Jane,” one of the most fascinating
discoveries at this year’s festival. An observational documentary about 1-800-call
workers in Bombay, “John and Jane” exposes the insidious reach of the so-called
American Dream, as experienced by six phone agents who peddle odd products
and services to callers throughout the U.S.
Without any direct comment, Ahluwalia's camera captures the workers' strange
surreal lives as they leave their small cramped flats for the clean, immaculate
hallways of their offices and take on fake American names to interact with their
customers. More intriguing and alarming, however, is the workers' "cultural
training" -- where they learn about "the pursuit of happiness" and other distinctly
"American" fundamentals.
Inspired, one man buys self-motivation tapes in order to realize his dream of
becoming a billionaire, like Elvis and Englebert Humperdinck; a woman refashions
her identity around her phone alias "Nicky Cooper"; a blonde girl prides herself on
her light skin and Westernized looks. Utterly blind to the cultural imperialism
overtaking their existence, the film's subjects are among globalization's most
tragic offspring. After watching "John and Jane," you'll never think the same way
again about calling customer service.
Befitting an international film festival, Toronto also featured a few entries in the
emerging genre of the globalization movie. Ashim Ahluwalia's documentary JOHN
& JANE meditates on the split identities of Mumbai call center workers, the
outsourced masses touted as beneficiaries of globalization by the likes of Thomas
Friedman. "At the end of the day," Friedman declares in The World Is Flat, "these
new jobs actually allow them to be more Indian"—apparently because they can
eat rice and curry after a long night hawking phone-service plans to cranky
Americans. John & Jane undermines this blinkered boosterism, evoking the glassy
near-future nowhereness of demonlover and Jem Cohen's recently released
Chain. Ahluwalia eavesdrops on accent elimination classes and cultural-training
seminars that teach "American values" ("individualism," "achievement in
success"). The depressing results—a self-help fanatic, a vaguely mutant specimen
who claims to be "naturally blond"—suggest that the brave new globalization
indeed promotes a form of flatness: a kind of two-dimensional man, programmed
to buy into and blindly serve the capitalist dream.
The Young and the Restless by Dennis Lim
September 20th, 2005
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