On Call

In a single medical office just outside Paris, a weary yet caring doctor and his colleagues are visited by a steady flow of patients, all with unique symptoms, yet all united by their status as refugees, migrants, and undocumented immigrants. Some reveal physical injuries; others hold wounds—and memories—that may never heal. All are documented by Alice Diop’s steady, unblinking camera, holding fast to their stories, and their faces most of all. “That face thwarts all the political, ideological discourse you hear all day long about immigration,” noted Diop. “To see On Call is a therapy against the reflexes of exclusion” (Olivier Barlet, Black Camera).