You can find Callshops in every city, but most of us barely notice them. Every day though these countless telephone centres offer immigrants a vital service by providing them with a cheap way of phoning home. For a short while the émigrés are able to forget their estrangement by hearing a familiar voice, reports from relatives, stories from far away. They gain an illusion of closeness that slowly fades away after they put down the receiver. With the formal precision of his camera Grigorian achieves a rare emotional intensity. We meet a love struck Arab, a jealous Romanian, a devoted woman from Cameroon. The expressions and gestures of the people on the end of the line illustrate over and over again the tragedy of homelessness.

"For a long time I have been searching for an image – for the image of a person without a home. For me it is the image of someone who has their ear pressed against a telephone receiver, just to make a connection with their homeland." Eldar Grigorian

Nothing lasts forever. Natalia is 22 years old and has just moved out of a hostel for single mothers into a small apartment with her daughter Samanta. Here she hopes to build a life as a family with her new partner Lukasz, but her belief in a better future soon begins to falter. While Lukasz goes out to work the young woman and her child kill time in front of the television. The days are long, the summer is hot, every once in a while someone comes to visit. In the evenings they eat together and there is silence, a bit of messing around, then silence again until the next day begins. As the motivation to get up in the morning wanes, financially it gets steadily harder and into the bargain Natalia's father moves into the one bedroom flat with them. Winter has arrived and, now the honeymoon period is over for Natalia and Lukasz, they argue more and more. As the relationship slowly but surely falls apart, Natalia finds out that she is expecting a baby. This is a film about the gentle magic of life, the passing of time and the small details of intense emotions.

Award: Prix de l’Etat de Vaud, Visions du Réel, Nyon 2007