Alice Diop – On Call #LFF2016

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Alice Diop, director of On Call, presented at the 60th BFI London Film Festival.

On Call was filmed by director Alice Diop at a walk-in service for asylum seekers in a hospital near Paris. The service is one of only a few like it, and is run by people who are really dedicated and passionate about the cause. It’s worrying it think that it is also a service that might be lacking in various other parts of the world, not only France.

On Call, directed by Diop and presented in the Documentary Competition section of the 60th BFI London Film Festival is timely also because the refugee crisis is a subject of constant debate. One of the things Diop succeeds in doing in her focused and unflinching documentary is humanize the topic of immigration by having the camera focused with no cuts on the intertwining events and lives of the patients who walk into the hospital rooms, all carrying their own emotional baggages along with their physical ills and troubles.

Our interview focuses on a number of key aspects, such as her own words to describe the particular choice of style employed in the making of the film and how she was able to get access to the location and film the patients as well as getting so close to them.

ON CALL. For this topical documentary, Alice Diop spent a year at the walk-in service for asylum seekers in Avicenne hospital, near Paris. Arriving in a state of physical and mental exhaustion, often traumatised by their exile and the limbo they’re kept in while seeking asylum, a succession of men and women arrive to seek treatment, some medicine or solace from the outside world. Filmed in static shots in the claustraphobia of a hospital room, the film captures dozens of consultations, giving voice to each new arrival who tells their personal, often harrowing story. It immediately personalises each patient, taking them out of the chilling anonymity they experience daily. The film also highlights the restrictions the doctors face, working with few resources to alleviate the overwhelming misery they witness with each consultation. On Call is a film of profound humanity that underlines the limits of our societies.