The Colony

The observation

Singapore, six in the morning. In a quiet room above the strait, a founder is already at his post. He usually is. Somewhere in the colony it is always a working hour: by the time Manila puts its headsets down, Bogotá is pulling its chair in.

Around him there is no office. No reception desk, no floor, no rows. There is a screen, and beyond it several thousand people working from their own rooms on their own machines, nearly all of whom have never met one another.

The film follows the colony through a single turn of the earth. Lamps coming on in Quezon City. A kitchen table in Bogotá. A handover that no one supervises, because the work simply moves west and the day starts again. It closes on a city after dark, thousands of small windows lit, each one a workplace.

How this film was made.