“Enjoy Your Stay” at the Berlinale: a tale of exploitation in Alpine ski resorts

A drama set on the peaks of global capitalism: "Enjoy Your Stay" premiered at this year's Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale). cineworx

Undocumented Filipino migrant workers who slave away as cleaners in luxury Swiss ski resorts are given a voice in a new film created by a Swiss–Filipino duo. Swiss director Dominik Locher and Filipino screenwriter Honeylyn Joy Alipio spoke to Swissinfo following the premiere of Enjoy Your Stay at the Berlin International Film Festival. (Berlinale).

With more than 23 million ski visitors a year since the pandemic, business is booming again in the Swiss Alps. The region’s “white gold” continues to seduce tourists from all over the world, promising a luxurious break from reality in which sport, relaxation and escapism are served in equal measure. As with all good things in life, however, someone must pay the price.

Scratch beneath Switzerland’s postcard‑perfect image and a different reality emerges: the country’s prosperity relies heavily on migrant labour. Often undocumented, these workers toil in plain sight for low wages, propping up the Alpine economy while remaining largely invisible.

It is exactly this shadowy microcosm, concealed behind a veneer of luxury, that Swiss director Dominik Locher set out to explore with his third feature film, the ironically titled Berlinale entry Enjoy Your Stay.

Our guide through this arena of inequality is Luz – a powerhouse role for the Filipino “Indie Queen” Mercedes Cabral — an undocumented woman who cleans luxury chalets in Verbier. Luz is headstrong and ambitious. At the same time, she keeps an eye on other female workers in her precarious environment until mounting family problems of her own push her to become another predatory cog in the ruthless machinery of capitalist exploitation.

Mercedes Cabral is the most renowned actress in the Philippines who also features in several international indie films. She plays an undocumented cleaner at the fancy hotel in the ski resort of Verbier. cineworx

Making the South visible

To establish these shifting hierarchies within the Filipino migrant community, Locher knew he had to team up with screenwriter Honeylyn Joy Alipio. The prolific writer, who grew up in the Philippines, understands the plight of transnational labourers first‑hand: her own mother went to work overseas when she was a child.

“I was very excited when Dominik approached me with this project,” Alipio says at the end of the 76th Berlinale, where Enjoy Your Stay premiered in the Panorama section. She recalls how the duo first met years ago at the Busan International Film Festival, and how they went on to form what she calls an “alliance to really push an issue forward”.

“It can be hard for people in the Philippines to make the world see what is happening to us in the Global South,” she explains. “That is why such reciprocity goes a long way. The saying goes that it takes two to tango and, as someone coming from the ‘First World’, Dominik was incredibly open to exploring these issues. For a storyteller like myself, that’s like hitting the jackpot.”

Writer Honeylyn Joy Alipio and director Dominik Locher during a photo-call at the Berlinale. Ronny Heine

Painful illumination

Locher, who had carried the idea for such a film for a long time, felt he had also hit the jackpot when he and Alipio began to dig into the story. “I wanted to talk about undocumented people in Switzerland,” he recalls.

“But I was aware I couldn’t tell that story solely from my own perspective. When we teamed up to do deeper research, Honeylyn actually discovered an article on Swissinfo about the dire conditions of Serbian cleaners. That already seemed like a really strong starting point. You have the luxury resorts Switzerland is famous for and on the other side overlooked, underpaid and exploited workers.”

He adds that thanks to Honeylyn’s input, “we transposed that story to workers from a Filipino background, which triggered a deep research process. We talked to people from many different walks of life – undocumented workers from several countries, local police, regional officials, chalet owners and tourists. Only after accumulating countless stories and testimonies did we start writing.”

That research process proved as painful as it was illuminating. It made Locher realise that “only the most determined migrants make it to Switzerland”. “Others might only get as far as Hong Kong or Qatar,” he says. “That idea prompted us to accentuate the boundless ambitions of Luz, which was also very important to Honeylyn.”

Bankers, teachers, chemists: cleaners in Switzerland. cineworx

She adds: “We did not want to portray these women – and it’s almost always women – as victims. It actually broke my heart to find out that so many of them were professionals back in the Philippines. We are talking about bankers, agriculturists, teachers and even chemists, who all ended up working in Switzerland as cleaners.”

The selfish wealthy

For Locher, these labour stories resonated on a personal level. “There is this notion of solidarity and equality in Switzerland, but I have also observed the more selfish sides of my country,” he says.

“As a little boy, after my parents divorced and went to live on opposite sides of the mountains, I would often travel back and forth through the tunnels by train. At the entry to one of the tunnels, my father, who was a bricklayer, would show me a sign stating how many Italian workers had died building it.” When these impressions came back to him after finishing his second feature Goliath (2017), Locher decided to “use the tools we have as filmmakers for empathic storytelling – not just to tell stories about privilege, but also to show care for overlooked people.”

As a truly transnational endeavour, Locher and Alipio moved back and forth between the Philippines and Switzerland to refine their screenplay, which they jokingly pitched as “the Safdie brothers [known for stressful thrillers Good Time and Uncut Gems] writing a script for the Dardenne brothers [Palme d’Or winners for hyper‑realist dramas about the Belgian working class], with Filipino cleaners in a Swiss luxury resort”.

Mercedes Cabral’s character, Luz, (centre) with her colleagues and boss. To avoid losing custody of her daughter, who remains in Manila, she must raise the necessary funds, at the risk of cutting herself off from her community and crossing her own moral boundaries. cineworx

The cross‑cultural collaboration did not stop at the script. It is built into the very DNA of Enjoy Your Stay. “We tried to keep that spirit on all levels,” Locher notes, “allowing editors, cinematographers, producers and actors from Switzerland and the Philippines to work together.”

For the film to properly dissect the inequality of globalised capitalism, he argues, “the storytelling and the production had to follow the state of the world”. Alipio agrees, stressing once again that “the film only works so well because of its reciprocity”.

Premiere in Berlin

The film’s double consciousness – moving between cultures and classes – clearly resonated with Berlinale audiences. According to Locher, Enjoy Your Stay received “incredibly positive reactions from both Filipino and Swiss viewers”. “The story spoke to both sides, which was very touching for us. It proved the universality at the heart of the project,” he says.

Alipio was likewise encouraged by the way responses echoed across borders. “Swiss people would say ‘now we realise we have to change something’, while people from the Philippines argued that this film could be used to provoke even more discussions. It seems like a film that can genuinely start a deeper conversation, so I hope we can keep the momentum going.”

After a successful festival run in Berlin, Locher and Alipio are taking stock of a project that had its genesis nearly a decade ago. “It required a lot of courage for people to believe in a project like this,” Alipio recalls. “To accept this collaborative experiment and see how it would work out. Hopefully the next one won’t take as long to get off the ground.”

The next project is already on the duo’s mind. “Even before this film was finished,” Locher says, “we were looking for other stories where we could apply this model of global authorship. I see a long, fruitful and lasting friendship ahead of us.”

Edited by Catherine Hickley & Eduardo Simantob/sb