A Message from Migrant Workers

CG Animation, sound. In collaboration with Guhit Kulay Artist Collective members Cristina Cayat, Jonalyn Molina, Maria Christina Anire, Lyn Lopez and Marichel Tomines. Animation: Tom McCaughan.

2021-2022

This short animated documentary film was developed in collaboration with five Filipino artists who also work as domestic workers in Hong Kong. The narrative presents five personal experiences of migrant domestic workers. The stories aim to shine a light on what working as a domestic worker abroad means, discussing issues from accommodation to working away from families, as well as focusing on the worker’s motivations, dreams and plans for the future, and the community's skill share activities practiced in public space in the limited spare time on their day off. The film’s visual narrative, the animation storyboard, the final script edit and the voiceovers were developed together through a series of online film writing workshops with the representatives of the domestic worker community. The visual narrative was developed with the CGI artist in response to the collective storyboard, based on actual locations that bear significance to the community of workers. The residential architectural environments are on the other hand fictional, developed based on the interviewees stories and collaborators interpretations of them. The animated sets are filled with the migrant worker artist's artworks including paintings, drawings and photographs, and the final chapter 'A message to migrant workers' showcases the scenes, locations and activities that inspired the film. The aim of this community filmmaking project was to explore new ways of collaborating online through skill share practices. Run between 2021 and 2022, the online film writing workshop programme was developed in response to Covid-19 pandemic restrictions which significantly curtailed the domestic workers community's in-person skill share practices.