Q: What surprised you most about the people you met when filming?
A: One of the biggest surprises was that it was not a sweatshop as I had imagined it to be. Indians working at these call centers get paid $10 a day, but that’s a lot given the standard of living in India. Plus they get picked up and dropped off at home. All their meals are provided for at work. They get to hang out with others in their age group and quite often earn more than their parents do. So the question of who benefits gets quite complicated since one sees the macro level benefit of multinational corporations that are saving billions in this age of global capitalism, but even at the micro level, Indians are benefiting from these jobs.
Q: What was particularly challenging about making this film?
A: Going to shoot at night and living in India as per Eastern Standard Time to make this film.
Q: Tell us about your upcoming film Out & About.
A: Out & About is a documentary film on parents of lesbian and gay folks living in India. India is the second largest populated country in the world and homosexuality is a criminal offense in this country. However, there are millions of gay and lesbian folks who lead underground, invisible lives—some who are out to their parents—and I’m really curious to see how space is negotiated within such a socio-cultural landscape.
