CALL CENTER BLUES
Directed by Geeta Gandbhir
CALL CENTER BLUES is a lyrical portrait of an unlikely community of US deportees and their loved ones struggling to rebuild their lives in Tijuana, Mexico.
A character-driven, cinematic tale of deportation, migration, displacement and opportunistic capitalism, CALL CENTER BLUES follows four characters as they struggle to make sense of their lives in Tijuana. Each with a vastly different story, they are all linked by their displacement and the sole choice of call center work they have in a country that is so unfamiliar and oftentimes frightening, yet other times a ray of hope. Tijuana becomes their home, a place defined by the border but yet defiant towards it, a no man's land where everything and everyone feels transient. These characters paint a picture of love, loss and longing - for home, for an American Dream deferred, and for justice.
Topic
2020
About
the Team
Geeta Gandbhir — Director
Geeta has been nominated for three Emmy Awards and won two. Most recently, she co-directed the feature documentary I AM EVIDENCE for HBO and a short film, LOVE THE SINNER. Both films premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. Her feature documentary PRISON DOGS, which she co-directed with Perri Peltz, premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, and a feature documentary she directed with Academy Award-winning director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES: PEACEKEEPERS, premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS in 2018. She also co-directed and co-produced a "Conversation on Race" series with The New York Times Op-Docs, which won an Online Journalism Award for Online Commentary, an AFI Documentary Film Festival Audience Award for Best Short, and garnered a MacArthur Grant. She also co-directed and edited the film, REMEMBERING THE ARTIST, ROBERT DE NIRO, SR.," with Perri Peltz for HBO which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014.
Jess Devaney — Producer
Jess is an Emmy-winning producer and Founder & President of Multitude Films. Their latest films include Yance Ford’s Netflix Original POWER (Sundance 2024); Oscar-shortlisted HBO Documentary Films Original HOW WE GET FREE (Aspen Shortsfest 2023); the Indigo Girls documentary IT’S ONLY LIFE AFTER ALL (Sundance 2023); and Emmy-winning Peacock Original LOWNDES COUNTY AND THE ROAD TO BLACK POWER (Tribeca 2022). Jess created the Ford Foundation-supported QUEER FUTURES series and also produced PRAY AWAY, CALL CENTER BLUES, ALWAYS IN SEASON, THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED, and SPEED SISTERS. She founded QueerDoc and was a Sundance Institute Documentary Edit and Story Lab fellow, Women at Sundance fellow, and Sundance Institute Creative Producing Lab advisor. They have been recognized with the Cinereach Producers Award, DOC NYC and Topic Studios' 40 Under 40 Award, Doc10’s Vanguard Award, and the 2023 Sundance Institute Amazon Studios Nonfiction Producers Award.
Abraham Avila (Field Producer)
Abraham has lived in Tijuana, Mexico since 1995, developing projects focused on human mobility and migration in collaboration with production companies like Multitude Films, RYOT, Redrum Productions, Show of Force, SoulPancake, Tokyo Television, and Lumbrera Films. He has worked as an editor, screenwriter, and director, and his recent producing work includes CHECHE IAVI (Sam Ellison), HUMAN FLOW (Ai Weiwei), OAXACALIFORNIA (Trisha Ziff) and NAVAJAZO (Ricardo Silva). As a screenwriter for the film HERCULES, he was a fellow of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA) in 2010 and of the Mexican Institute of Cinematography (IMCINE). He has taught film and cinema courses at IMCINE, École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts de Cergy-Pontoise (ENSAPC) in Paris, The Armory in Pasadena, California, and the Iberoamericana Santa Fé University in Mexico City.
Viridiana Lieberman — Editor
Viridiana has worked in television, film, and short-form digital content as an editor, director, and writer for the past 10 years. Her first documentary feature BEHIND THE OCTAGON, chronicling the musical Lesbian Love Octagon, was chosen to be workshopped at the 2013 CineSLAM Program at the Pride of the Ocean Film Festival. In 2014, her book Sports Heroines on Film: A Critical Study of Cinematic Women Athletes, Coaches and Owners was released by McFarland Publishing. She worked on BACK ON BOARD: GREG LOUGANIS which aired on HBO in 2014 and NOTHING LEFT UNSAID: GLORIA VANDERBILT AND ANDERSON COOPER which aired on HBO in 2016. She edited I AM EVIDENCE, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2017. She also edited and co-directed FATTITUDE, an upcoming feature-length documentary that exposes how popular culture fosters fat prejudice.
Asad Faruqi (Director of Photography)
Asad is a New York based Emmy Award Winning Cinematographer and Filmmaker from Pakistan. ARMED WITH FAITH (2018), a film that he produced, shot and co-directed, won the best Political and Government News and Documentary Emmy Award. Over the past 10 years Asad has lensed a number of award winning films around the world on topics ranging from critical social issues to violence, war and conflict. His cinematography credits include HBO’s Academy and Emmy Award Winning documentary shorts A GIRL IN THE RIVER (2016) and SAVING FACE (2012). Other notable works include NEW HOMELAND (2018), A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES: PEACEKEEPERS (2015), SONG OF LAHORE (2015), and PAKISTAN’S TALIBAN GENERATION (2009), which garnered the Emmy and Alfred I. Dupont Award. Asad’s work has been featured on HBO, PBS, Channel 4, CBC, SBS, Arte, and The New York Times among many others.
Co-Producer
Lisa Valencia-Svensson
Associate Producer
Colleen Cassingham
Paulette Marte
Consulting Producer
Patricia Benabe
Production Assistants
David Reyes
Jot Sahi
Executive Producers
Ryan Chanatry
Anna Holmes
Gena Konstantinakos
Supervising Producers
Jeff Seelbach
Jennie Bedusa
Co-Executive Producer
Anya Rous
Sound Recordist
Juan Manuel Gonzalez Felix
