The drama "Enjoy Your Stay," which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, has been acquired by Indonesian distributor Falcon for its premiere at Jakarta World Cinema. Directed by Dominik Locher and Honeylyn Joy Alipio, the film depicts the life of Luz, an undocumented Filipina cleaner at a luxury Swiss ski resort.
Locher stated that during research, the filmmakers heard about Indonesian people working in Swiss nail salons, describing some cases as the worst situations. He expressed hope that the movie would speak for Indonesian people. Locher described the world the film exposes as "the dirty side of the Swiss postcard."
The story follows Luz, played by Mercedes Cabral, who faces the possibility of losing custody of her children to her husband in the Philippines. To prevent this, she works extra hard and is lured by a Swiss gangmaster promising higher pay and legal documents. She becomes a labor trafficker herself, only to find the reality is a pipe dream.
Locher and Alipio met at the Busan International Film Festival. When Locher decided to tell a story about "people who live in the shadow of Switzerland," he contacted Alipio to collaborate. Alipio, who uses a "found story" approach merging real-life cases into fiction, worked with Locher to research on-site at Swiss luxury resorts. They spoke with undocumented workers from the Philippines, Serbia, and Sri Lanka.
Alipio shared that she has personally encountered the assumption that she was a cleaner, noting that a neighbor once asked if she was Locher's cleaner. She told Variety, "As 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."
Locher noted that Alipio insisted from the start that Luz not be reduced to a victim because she is undocumented, stating, "because she must be a very ambitious woman. Otherwise she would never be in Switzerland." This ambition is shown to test her loyalty to her Filipino colleagues.
