Dea (2021)

• 79%
• 2021
• Drama
• Alberto Gerosa

"Dea" probes the put-upon lives of foreign domestic helpers, mostly hailing from Indonesia or The Philippines, who enable Hong Kong's middle classes to function as double income families and facilitate the territory's hard-charging, long-hours work culture. And yet foreign domestic helpers endure often demeaning living standards, sleeping in their employer's smallest rooms, precarious employment conditions, sexual violence, and widespread ridicule for their 'colorful' group activities in public places on their Sunday rest days. The film is a product of a workshop of for women in Hong Kong and neighboring Macau, who had experienced employer abuse in the course of their work. For the sake of legal distance and storytelling fluency, "Dea" was made, not as a documentary, but as a fiction film that dramatizes real events.