The Old Library, 119-121 High Street, London
Thu 1 Oct · 18:30 · £4
There are nearly 400,000 domestic migrant workers in Hong Kong, most of them women from the Philippines and Indonesia. The lack of a legal cap on working hours, alongside the live-in requirement, subjects these workers to overwork and cramped living conditions, and leaves them more vulnerable to physical and emotional abuse. This Pay-What-You-Can community screening reflects on the labour conditions of Filipino domestic migrant workers in Hong Kong and the UK. Followed by a discussion over Hong Kong and Filipino snacks with Rose Ann Cotitob at The Voice of Domestic Workers. The Model Family Award Germany, Philippines | 2008 | Colour | 12’ | In English and Filipino with English subtitles Dir.: Lizza May David Every year in the Philippines, awards are given to ‘the most outstanding Filipino workers and their families for their exceptional achievements’. Artist Lizza May David captures the irony behind this glamorisation of a national labour-export policy built on the disruption of family life. We Don’t Dance For Nothing Hong Kong, Canada, Philippines, USA | 2022 | 87’ | Colour | In Cantonese, English, Filipino with English subtitles Dir.: Stefanos Tai “There were so many fighting to be free, but I wondered — how many of them went home to dinner cooked by someone like me?” We Don't Dance For Nothing follows H (Miles Sible), a Filipina domestic worker caring for a family of four in the city, at a time when hundreds of thousands of people are marching in the streets, demanding their freedom. H dreams of freedom too: a life where she can run away with her girlfriend Sampa (Xyza Cada). Her own life feels constantly on pause for the lives of others, a rhythm filmmaker Stefanos Tai renders through photo-montage — one that only finds its flow again when she is dancing. Rose Ann Cotitob is a proud migrant domestic worker and campaigner with The Voice of Domestic Workers. She is originally from the Philippines and today works as a nanny and housekeeper in Hackney. In 2023, her employer brought her to London and she was later identified as a victim of modern slavery. --- Hong Kong Film Festival UK returns for its fourth edition from 25 September to 4 October in London, presenting reflective and shape-shifting cinema from Hong Kong, the wider Asian diaspora and beyond, marking the start of a more year-round festival. This year’s programme foregrounds diaspora as agency — behind the camera, on screen and between communities. Across contemporary and historical cinema, artists’ moving image and interdisciplinary art practices, the festival moves through questions of migration, colonisation, activism and gender. Together, these works reshape ideas of memory and community.