[United New England]

Title: What the Janitor Saw
Category: Documentary/Nonfiction
Production company: Orson Films
Directed by: Jeremy Kazanjian
Edited by: Jade Sannavongsay
Languages: English, French with English subtitles
Running time: 92 minutes

This documentary follows custodians in multiple New England workplaces as they clean, watch, and listen.

Part I: Clemence, a beloved community member and grandmother, is the janitor at a small high school near the Quebec border in northern Maine. The community is divided along linguistic lines, as it is almost exactly half Anglophone and half Francophone. The usual high school drama of infidelity and intrigue is augmented by the cultural divide, especially when two students are found having a secret tryst in the locker room. Clemence dispenses sage life advice to the town’s teens as she wipes their cafeteria tables and sweeps their classrooms, but will it be enough to keep them on track?


Clemence

Part II: Zivanai, a hardworking young man from Zimbabwe, is a cleaner at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. As he mops floors and disinfects sinks, he quietly witnesses events like a child’s emergence from a coma and a fistfight between two visitors. Meanwhile, Zivanai and a few of his coworkers are determined to bring down a Patriarca Mafia loan sharking scheme that targets the hospital’s disadvantaged immigrant workers. They must be cautious, since revealing their plan too early could make them the enemies of a Mob member.


Zivanai

Part III: Edwin works as a part-time custodian at a busy bed and breakfast in the mountains of northwestern Connecticut. He was born with Down syndrome and has a mild intellectual disability. Guests often assume that he won’t fully grasp their conversations, but amiable Eddy understands more than he can easily express. His quiet life of dusting bookshelves and changing bedsheets is shaken up when he overhears the vice chairman of an American bank hiring a hitman over the phone. Can Eddy find enough evidence to convince the bank’s chairman that his life is in danger?


Edwin

Audiences will love watching What the Janitor Saw, a film full of both shocking surprises and heartwarming human connections.