Watch the World TV Premiere of John & Jane on PIX

Media News

New Delhi, June 19, 208

Synopsis

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.

Don’t miss the World TV Premiere of John & Jane on 22nd June at 8pm only on PIX exclusively!

For further information, please contact:

LINOpinion

Jinal Rathod

Mob: +098204 46499

e-mail: Jinal.Rathod@lintasindia.com