Film
Pinoy Sunday
D: Ho Wi Ding
Short Film: Belonging
D: Lin Ming-Ying
Taiwan 2009, 18 min., Original with English subtitles
Pinoy Sunday
Feature film, France/Japan/Philippines/Taiwan 2010, 85 min., Original with English subtitles
On their only day off, Filipino migrant workers Manuel and Dado discover a couch left behind on a Taipei sidewalk. In a life where everything is arranged and all possessions belong to the factory they work for, the couch is the chance to own something of their own. Imagining the end of their work day comfortably seated in the red piece of furniture, the two protagonists begin highly motivated to carry the heavy piece of furniture across the city of Taipei to their dormitory – pressed by the government-mandated curfew to make it back in time. Pinoy Sunday is a highly ironic and humorous and at times subtly melancholic depiction of the daily struggles migrant workers have to face in their life abroad: the constant pressure of potential deportation and the disconnection from beloved ones. In search of compensation, replacement, and sometimes break ups for an intimate life in the 'new home,' Manuel and Dado capture our hearts immediately