Call Center Blues (2020)

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. Topic.

GEETA GANDBHIR (Director) embarked on her career in narrative film under the guidance of Spike Lee and Sam Pollard. As a Director, credits include the series "Born in Synanon" for Paramount, "Eyes on the Prize" for HBO, "Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power," which was nominated for the 2022 Critics Choice Award, won a 2023 SIMA Award, and is nominated for two 2023 Emmys. She directed and show ran the series "Black and Missing" for HBO which won a 2022 NAACP Award for Best Directing, a 2022 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Series, a 2022 ATAS Honors Award, and a Cinema Eye Honors for Best Series. She directed the film "Apart," with Rudy Valdez, for HBOMax, which was nominated for an NAACP Award and won a 2022 Emmy Award. Her short film from 2020, "Call Center Blues," with Topic Studios was shortlisted for the 2021 Academy Awards. She directed an episode "The Asian Americans" for PBS, which won the 2021 Peabody Award. Additional directing credits include the six-part series "Why We Hate" for Discovery, and "I Am Evidence" for HBO which won a 2019 Emmy, DuPont Award, and ATAS Award. Her film "Armed with Faith" for PBS also won a 2019 News and Documentary Emmy, an episode of the Netflix series "The Rapture," focusing on rap artist Rapsody, "Prison Dogs," which she co-directed with Perri Peltz, and "A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers," for PBS. She also played a co-director and co-producer role in the "A Conversation on Race" series in collaboration with The New York Times Op-Docs. This series earned recognition, including an Online Journalism Award for Online Commentary, an AFI Documentary Film Festival Audience Award for Best Short, and a MacArthur Grant. She also co-produced the HBO film "The Sentence," directed by Rudy Valdez, which received a 2019 Primetime Emmy.

ABRAHAM AVILA (Field Producer) 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.

ASAD FARUQI (Director of Photography) 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.

VIRIDIANA LIEBERMAN (Editor) is a filmmaker and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. She edited the feature documentary I AM EVIDENCE (Tribeca 2017, HBO), which won a 2019 News & Doc Emmy for Best Documentary and the short documentary LOVE THE SINNER (Tribeca 2017). She also co-directed FATTITUDE, a feature documentary that exposes how popular culture fosters fat prejudice and then offers an alternative way of thinking. She edited SPECIAL OLYMPICS: 50 YEARS OF CHANGING THE GAME which aired in 2018 on ABC and ESPN and THE SENTENCE (HBO), which won the 2018 Sundance Film Festival US Documentary Audience Award and the 2019 Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. In 2019, she edited STONEWALL: THE MAKING OF A MONUMENT for New York Times Op-Docs.

Producer
Jess Devaney

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