Personale

The washing machines are spinning, people are cleaning, folding towels, vacuuming and mopping floors. Contrary to our own experiences as guests in a hotel, we take a look behind the scenes and see what they are trying hard to hide: we observe the housekeeping team at their tiring daily work in a 4-star hotel in the Italian Dolomites. The women and few men on the staff, all with a history of migration, wear white aprons and blue gloves and ensure constant cleanliness. We follow their routine movements in the corridors, hotel rooms and the hotel laundry room. A completely new perspective opens up, determined by the cyclical repetition of the same activities: folding towels, making beds and mopping floors and bathrooms. The overriding maxim is to keep the tourist machinery running despite all internal and external resistance. There is talk of shifts that are far too long, hardly any sleep and no opportunities for vacation or sick leave. What the workers share are the brief breaks at the coffee machine or stories from their personal lives that intertwine with their daily routines. Moments of connection emerge, illuminating the hectic nature of their everyday lives. "Personale" radically and exclusively takes the perspective of the workers. Of the hotel guests, who usually only stay temporarily, we only discover traces, as the cleaning staff regularly finds them: dirty dishes, empty coffee cups, forgotten earrings or scraps of paper. The film takes a close look at this seemingly immaculate microcosm, tells us about the living realities of the workers, and makes visible what is meant to remain invisible.