{"id":955494,"date":"2026-11-07T03:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T03:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/955494\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T03:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T03:44:09","slug":"swiss-labor-drama-enjoy-your-stay-lands-in-indonesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/955494\/","title":{"rendered":"Swiss Labor Drama ‘Enjoy Your Stay’ Lands in Indonesia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cEnjoy Your Stay<\/a>,\u201d the Berlin Film Festival drama from \u201cGoliath\u201d director Dominik Locher and Filipino filmmaker Honeylyn Joy Alipio, has been acquired by Indonesian distributor Falcon and has its Indonesian premiere at Jakarta World Cinema<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film follows Luz, an undocumented Filipina cleaner at a Swiss luxury ski resort.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe heard about [stories of] Indonesian people working in nail salons in Swiss cities during our research. That\u2019s even the worst situation in some cases, and we were really hoping that this movie could also speak for Indonesian people,\u201d Locher says.<\/p>\n

\n\tLuz, played by Mercedes Cabral, may lose custody of her children to her husband back home. To prevent that, she works extra hard and, lured by the legal document and higher pay promised by a Swiss gangmaster, becomes a labor trafficker herself. The reality turns out to be a pipe dream. Locher calls the world it exposes \u201cthe dirty side of the Swiss postcard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlexis Manenti also stars. Close Up Films produced the film, with JBA Production co-producing and Be For Films handling sales.<\/p>\n

\n\tLocher and Alipio, who co-wrote and co-directed the film, first met at the Busan International Film Festival. When Locher later set out to tell a story about \u201cpeople who live in the shadow of Switzerland,\u201d he reached out to Alipio, who agreed to collaborate.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlipio trained under Filipino artist Armando \u201cBing\u201d Lao and works with his \u201cfound story\u201d approach, in which filmmakers merge real-life cases into fiction. The pair researched on site at Swiss luxury resorts, talking to undocumented workers from countries including Serbia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlipio has run into the assumption herself: one of Locher\u2019s neighbors once asked if she was his cleaner. Locher corrected the neighbor \u2013 she was his colleague.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a Filipina, I cannot help but feel sadness and shame. I do not want the Filipinas to be portrayed as cleaners, but that is our reality. It was a hard pill to swallow,\u201d Alipio tells Variety.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe still finds the partnership beautiful, because she and Locher represent the two countries in the story and, together, amplify the voices within it.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was Alipio, Locher says, who insisted from the start that Luz not be reduced to a victim because she\u2019s undocumented, \u201cbecause she must be a very ambitious woman. Otherwise she would never be in Switzerland.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat ambition tests her loyalty to her Filipino colleagues, who support each other like sisters.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter its Berlin world premiere in February, \u201cEnjoy Your Stay\u201d had its Asian premiere at the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival, where the filmmakers held a panel with an organization that supports undocumented workers. In Switzerland, where the film will screen publicly on Nov. 22, Locher and Alipio organized a special screening exclusively for undocumented workers. Screenings were fully booked and drew rave reviews from Filipino viewers, many of whom said the film captured their reality.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe hoped that [it] would be a movie [people] enjoy watching, but also a movie that stirs up discussions on how to treat one another,\u201d Locher says. Alipio, he adds, once said she hopes that in 50 years, the story the film tells will no longer happen in real life.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe pair\u2019s next project, \u201cPartner Zone,\u201d which Variety first reported in February<\/a>, follows a Swiss ESG (environmental, social and governance) auditor to the Philippines to examine a gold mine. Switzerland refines 50%-70% of the world\u2019s annual gold supply.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDom and I have already established a working dynamic. We have an ambition to create more films dedicated to the world\u2019s marginalized people,\u201d Alipio says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe duo are still at the research stage and plan to start scripting in 2027, with 90% of the shoot set for the Philippines and the rest in Geneva.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cEnjoy Your Stay,\u201d the Berlin Film Festival drama from \u201cGoliath\u201d director Dominik Locher and Filipino filmmaker Honeylyn Joy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":955495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,522871,134,522872,344],"class_list":["post-955494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-enjoy-your-stay","tag-entertainment","tag-jakarta-world-cinema","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/955495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}