Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Start your free trial

Already subscribed? Sign in

Personale

UR rating icon
Icarus Films • 1h 33m

Directed by Carmen Trocker • Documentary • 2024 • 93 minutes

PERSONALE is set at a four-star hotel in northeastern Italy — a luxurious spot in the Dolomite Mountains, where guests come to ski, swim, and relax. But instead of the scenery, the film focuses on the unseen: the housekeeping staff who are at the bottom of the hotel hierarchy, and whose work is absolutely essential.

Filmed over six weeks, PERSONALE is a snapshot of behind-the-scenes intensity, punctuated by the repetitive rhythms and hard physical labor of washing, folding, scrubbing, and changing bedding. Glimpses of the workers’ personal lives and challenges emerge too: a Ukrainian refugee from the war, who often seems on the verge of tears. Two Russian-speaking women comparing notes on how to maintain their manicures. Muslims discussing the challenges of Ramadan.

Housekeeping is understaffed, and the workers commiserate over workload and time off. But they also bicker, argue over who cleans the toilets, and break off into their own language groups. A well-run hotel is an immaculate world of its own. PERSONALE immerses us in the view few guests ever see.

Tags
business, class, cultural anthropology, doc, documentary, economic anthropology, economics, europe, european studies, expository, globalization, hospitality, hospitality sector, hotel, housekeeping, icarus films, immigration, immigration and refugees, italian, italy, labor, labor and economics, labor economics, labor studies, migration, ovid, personale, social issues, sociology of work, sociss, work, working conditions

Up Next in Icarus Films

  • [CENSORED]
    1:05:58
    [CENSORED]

    [CENSORED]

    Directed by Sari Braithwaite • Documentary • 2018 • 66 minutes

    Deep in the vaults of the Australian National Archives lie thousands upon thousands of celluloid scraps: scenes that were cut by government censors from films imported into the country between the years of 1958-1971. Peppered through...

  • 108 (Cuchillo de Palo)
    1:33:24
    108 (Cuchillo de Palo)

    108 (Cuchillo de Palo)

    Directed by Renate Costa Perdomo • Documentary • 2010 • 91 minutes

    When Rodolfo Costa was found naked on the floor of his home in Paraguay, he had been dead for days. Though ostensibly jobless, he had mysteriously amassed a small fortune. He also had a secret alias-Hector Torres-and a secret lif...

  • 10th Parallel
    1:27:06
    10th Parallel

    10th Parallel

    Directed by Silvio Da-Rin • Documentary • 2011 • 87 minutes

    10th PARALLEL takes us on a 300-mile journey up Brazil's Envira river into the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, to the frontier of a territory populated by the country's uncontacted indigenous tribes. Our guide is Jose Carlos Meirelles, ...

×