We Don't Dance for Nothing

Like many modern financial centers worldwide, Hong Kong is full of young workers from lesser blessed locales, especially young women from the Philippines who toil as anonymous »helpers« for affluent families. They clean, prepare food and take their employer’s kids to school – with not much of life’s pleasure afforded to themselves. Except for their day off, that is, when they are allowed to publicly live their private lives: laugh, eat, drink and – especially – dance.
Director Stefanos Tai’s »We Don‘t Dance for Nothing« takes us behind the curtain of this vibrant subculture, recreating true stories of Filipina women he met during his four-year-long stay in Hong Kong. His cinematic style is as intimate as it is breathtaking, alternating between series of still photos during their work-life and truly vibrant and colorful dance sequences that show their unbridled joy, energy and unimpaired humanity. It is a love letter to these young women who endure the drudgery of household chores to live their precious free time to the fullest – a wonderful and enormously engaging mixture of documentary and musical. »La Jetée« meets »La La Land«