Keswick Film Club - On Falling

Synopsis

From the producers of 'I, Daniel Blake', their latest social realist story takes us into the world of warehouses, specifically into the world of a Portuguese immigrant in a Scottish warehouse. "The transient space of Scotland's gig economy provides the backdrop for Laura Carreira's accomplished debut feature. By tackling big themes of isolation and the gig economy in an intimate way, she submerges us within them rather than simply showing them to us. The enormous warehouse where Portuguese migrant Aurora (Joana Santos) works is not a destination job for her or most who work there. It's just a place that pays the bills until something better comes along. And better doesn't mean a lot - for example, the friend who car-shares with her dreams of a job where she can sit down" - Amber Wilkinson, Eye for Film.

Aurora is a 'picker', pushing a trolley through the warehouse finding items chosen online by people she will never meet, keeping to a pace set by the machine in her hand. She is paid just enough to live on - when her mobile phone need repairing, this is a disaster as she is forced to go without other essentials.

The isolation in her job is mirrored in her homelife; she has one room in a house-share with others doing similar jobs on different shifts. "There is no pretending 'On Falling' is not a hard, grim watch. But the completeness of its construction remains a marvel throughout. And Santos deserves endless praise for communicating the despairing human eager to break out from the passive drone society wants her to be. An astonishing, unsettling fable of hidden miseries" - Donald Clarke, The Irish Times.