Shift

An unconventional love story set in the world of private prisons, where inmates work for giant corporations.

Premiere Date
April 1, 2000
Length
60 minutes
Producer

Kelly Anderson

Born and raised in Montreal, Kelly Anderson has lived in New York City for the past 15 years, where she is an assistant professor in the department of Film and Media Studies at Hunter College. Her recent credits include Out At Work and Making a Killing (both produced and directed with Tami Gold), which she also edited, and Shift, a one-hour drama she produced… Show more and directed for public television (ITVS) about the relationship between a North Carolina waitress and a telemarketing prison inmate. Anderson was the co-producer of the ITVS’s Signal to Noise, a three-part public television series about America’s relationship with television, and, in 1994, she produced and directed the documentary Looking for a Space. Anderson is a recipient of fellowships from the American Film Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Show less

Other ITVS Films
Every Mother's Son

We fund untold stories for public media.

Learn more about funding opportunities with ITVS.

MORE INFO

The Film

An unconventional love story set in the South in the near future, Shift unfolds in a world of high unemployment, low-wage service jobs, tough anti-crime laws, and private prisons where inmates earn less than minimum wage working for giant corporations. One night Louis, an inmate doing corporate telemarketing, calls Melanie, a waitress in a South Carolina airport coffee shop. Frustrated with her dead-end job and unemployed husband, Melanie flirts with Louis and a volatile relationship begins.

Topics