Phantom of the Operator Documentary Screening & Conversation with Caroline Martel

A free screening of the award-winning documentary Phantom of the Operator by filmmaker and Concordia University alumni Caroline Martel. A conversation and Q&A with Dr. Magdalena Olszanowski will follow.

Caroline Martel is a documentary artist who was born in Montréal the year the cellular phone was created (1973). She has been synthesizing documentary theory and practice in a variety of projects since 1998, with a special interest in archival materials, cinema history, women and communication technologies.

This wry and delightful found-footage film reveals a little-known chapter in labor history: the story of female telephone operators’ central place in the development of global communications. With an eye for the humorous, Caroline Martel assembles a dazzling array of clips – more than one hundred remarkable, rarely seen industrial, advertising and scientific management films produced in North America between 1903 and 1989 by Bell and Western Electric – and transforms them into a dreamlike montage documentary.

• “A remarkable achievement” - Vancouver International Film Festival
• “An enormously imaginative documentary…an hour of non-stop visual and intellectual stimulation.” - Variety
• “Marte’s remarkable work ultimately questions the diminishing role of human beings in a techno-driven world; it is must-viewing for anyone with an interest in communications, media studies, sociology, and the future.” - Deirdre Boyle Graduate Media Studies Program, New School University
• “Poetic, evocative, and witty...Beautifully written, edited, and conceived gem that brilliantly uses ephemeral films to illuminate large issues like the history of the 20th century, and the way that technology infects and affects so many aspects of our personal and social lives." - David Schwartz Chief Curator, Museum of The Moving Image (NYC)

Screenings

• International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)
• Toronto International Film Festival
• Chicago International Film Festival
• Finger Lakes Envonmental Film Festival, Ithaca College
• Vancouver International Film Fest
• Taiwan International Documentary Festival
• New York Museum of Modern Art, Canadian Front
• Ladyfest, Chicago, IL