Ditsi Carolino, Sadhana Buxani
- Philippines
- 1999
- 84min
- Digi-beta
- color
- Documentary
SYNOPSIS
The film begins with the story of Elsa, a female worker at a clothes manufacturing factory in the Philippines. In order to fight the long 16-hour a days and uncompensated work on Sundays, which make it virtually impossible for them to have a normal family life, Elsa and her colleagues set up a union. One year after the illegal closing of their factory, however, their efforts are going nowhere and they are becoming exhausted due to the interference of the official worker¡¯s association. The film also portrays the lives of Filipino women who move to Japan to escape the unjust and irrational economic system within the Philippines. Filipino women, who work in Japan as singers and hostesses, try to survive but also challenge the stigma attached to Filipino women, embodied in the slur \"JapaYuki.\" In both the Philippines and Japan, there is a wide-spread assumption that all Filipino women who work in Japan as entertainers are prostitutes. Their struggles to break this stereotype include demonstrating an independent self to their patriarchal Japanese husbands, and advertising the merits of Filipino culture to Japanese society at large. Though these small but significant efforts that they embody, they contribute to creating culturally-diverse societies in both the Philippines and Japan. (Billy Choi)
PROGRAM NOTE
The film begins with the story of Elsa, a female worker at a clothes manufacturing factory in the Philippines. In order to fight the long 16-hour a days and uncompensated work on Sundays, which make it virtually impossible for them to have a normal family life, Elsa and her colleagues set up a union. One year after the illegal closing of their factory, however, their efforts are going nowhere and they are becoming exhausted due to the interference of the official worker¡¯s association. The film also portrays the lives of Filipino women who move to Japan to escape the unjust and irrational economic system within the Philippines. Filipino women, who work in Japan as singers and hostesses, try to survive but also challenge the stigma attached to Filipino women, embodied in the slur \"JapaYuki.\" In both the Philippines and Japan, there is a wide-spread assumption that all Filipino women who work in Japan as entertainers are prostitutes. Their struggles to break this stereotype include demonstrating an independent self to their patriarchal Japanese husbands, and advertising the merits of Filipino culture to Japanese society at large. Though these small but significant efforts that they embody, they contribute to creating culturally-diverse societies in both the Philippines and Japan. (Billy Choi)