Personale

What we see are hands lining up deck chairs with suitable precision, scrubbing bathrooms and unloading washing trolleys, hands filling up vast washing machines, folding towels and smoothing down bed sheets, arranging cushions, using the vacuum cleaner and polishing banisters. We also see the women and men that carry out these activities, most of them migrants. In PERSONALE, Carmen Trocker accompanies the housekeeping team at a 4-star hotel in the Dolomites of Southern Tyrol as they go through their daily routines and takes a look at precisely what is supposed to remain hidden from hotel guests and that usually stays invisible: the hard, monotonous work carried out in order to make sure that everything runs smoothly and guarantee that those on holiday remain content. The precarious conditions in which they work are impossible to overlook: the tempo demanded of them is great, the breaks are short and the rules rigid, the pressure, stress and exhaustion immense. The guests are never seen and yet still present: in the form of a still life, the film shows the traces left behind by their stays. (Birgit Kohler)

At fsk Kino, Segitzdamm 2, Berlin-Kreuzberg