Who are the patient and friendly voices at the end of hundreds of hotlines, these call centres, which all large companies nowadays use for customer care, answering irritable questions twenty-four hours a day?
They are young people like Martina, Atalan, Izet or Michaela: modern vagabonds, transients, people without a real home; located, while they speak to you, someplace in the world where you would least expect them.
Amsterdam is the European Mecca for international call-centres. Hundreds of young call centre agents from all over the world are working here. Four of them will be the focal point of this film.
A research in the social laboratory of the Netherlands, Europe’s experimental field and a film about globalisation and the working conditions of a world on our doorstep.
photography: Knut Schmitz
in coproduktion with: ZDF/Kleines Fernsehspiel, IKON (NL) und VRT Canvas (Belgium)
awards: Adolf Grimme Preis 2004, Nominierung Prix Europa 2005
festivals: 46. Internationales Dokumentarfilmfestival Leipzig, 27. Duisburger Filmwoche



