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versorgen

In what ways can we take care of others while taking care of ourselves?

synopsis

versorgen immerses us in the choreographed realm of care work between people, bodies and machines. The film takes us into hospital rooms and private apartments - everywhere people care for each other professionally and in private. By creating a poetic composition of touch, reward, time, and attention, the film mysteriously follows the everyday lives of five care workers and one clieaning staff member. We witness moments that are matter of life or death, and others that revolve around the right detergent or lunch sandwich. And while versorgen creates a meticulous, fictional mosaic, surfaces and bodies are washed, work uniforms are put on and taken off, machines are connected to bodies and curtains are aired.

Director’statement

Shampooing: 15min, dental care: 5min, compression stockings: 10min, gastric tube insertion: 20min, respiratory therapy: 14min, lunch break: 45min (unpaid) – from the Service Catalogue of the Swiss Homecare Federation. How does it affect these healthcare workers to be on an everyday basis in close proximity to other people’s bodies and intimate concerns, with the social mandate to take care of them? How do they navigate this “in-between”: negotiating nakedness, managing dirt and disgust, balancing intimacy and distance? What strategies do they have to cope with the effects of this labour and its neoliberal organisation? Our modern understanding of the self as an autonomous, rational agent – free from unchosen circumstances or biosocial forces – collapses with illness. Careworkers navigate this, dealing with aspects of bodily existence that modern society is reluctant to acknowledge openly. versorgen seeks to carefully look and listen to this embodied knowledge within its systemic context.

TFL PROGRAMME:
FeatureLab 2024

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