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Philippines

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2:30 PM-5:30 PM

What do these girls need?

Film screening with hybrid Zoom conversation|Co-curated by Sarnt Utamachote and Jules Leaño

“For the long time, we hold the world on our shoulders”

Guest: Parichat Pai (Berlin) via Zoom and a member of Philippines Sexwork Collective (person)
Duration: 2 Hours

The program looks at issues of gendered labors of Thai and Filipina women communities in diaspora. This It is part of Sarnt Utamachote’s ongoing research “In Nobody’s Service”, which looks at intersection of service sector, care labor, sex work, interracial marriage, and desire, that shaped the migration route from Thailand and Philippines to Germany.

The program opens with an early short documentary about queer migration to Japan “The sex warriors and the samurai”, by Nick Deocampo, which features Joan who worked in the entertainment industry in order to save money for gender transition. The second documentary “Westwarts: Southeast Asian women in West Germany” - which Sarnt collected the archive and digitized - is a collaboration between Southeast Asian Information Center Bochum and Foundation for Women Thailand back in 1989, depicting Thai sex workers, marriage brides, Filipino housemaids, and trafficked women to West Germany. It also features the organization Ban Ying (Thai word for “house of women”): Berlin’s oldest shelter house and consulting center for women who faced trafficking. Continuing this migration history related to sex work (and its political differentiation from prostitution), the last film is first Thai film ever made by sex workers themselves (Empower Foundation Thailand), that mocks the narrative of “saving the victims” via many NGOs against trafficking. It brings awareness to the current political shifts in the narratives regarding this topic.

Together withParichat Pai(current coordinator of Ban Ying Berlin), joining via Zoom, and a senior member of Philippines Sexwork Collective from Manila, we aim to unpack this history as well as discuss the changes in society’s acceptance or still stigma about the topic.

Films:
  • The Sex Warriors and The Samurai
  • Nick Deocampo, Philippines 1995, 26 min. Tagalog with English subtitles
  • Westward: Southeast Asian women in West Germany
  • Southeast Asian Information Center Bochum & Foundation for Women Thailand, West Germany 1990, 38 min.
  • The last rescue in Siam Empower Foundation Thailand, Thailand 2012, 10 min.

About the Curators

  • Jules Leaño

    Jules Leaño is a Scottish-Filipino artist based between Berlin and Scotland. With a background in experimental film and visual anthropology, her work explores the relationship between visual media, collective memory, and the various social and political realities we experience. Her work engages with the materiality of the moving image, utilising analogue film, digital video, expanded cinema installation and performance. Playing with the processes of destruction, preservation and reconstruction, her work explores the parallels that these images and processes may have of the reality they portray.

  • Sarnt Utamachote

    Sarnt Utamachote is a Southeast Asian nonbinary filmmaker and curator based in Berlin (Germany). They are co-founder of un.thai.tled collective, platform for Thai diasporic artists based in Germany. They are also a part of the Cruising Curators collective. Their recent curatorial projectYoung Birds From Strange Mountainsat Schwules Museum Berlin (2025) focuses on queer artists and archives from Southeast Asia and its diaspora. Their research about exiled Cambodian artists in East Germany was featured at D21 Leipzig, MDBK Leipzig, Echoes of the Brother Countries (2024) at HKW Berlin, and at Kunst Raum Mitte Berlin. Their recent short filmI don’t want to be just a memory(2022–24) had its premiere at 74th Berlinale Forum Expanded.

    This installation represents their ongoing projectIn Nobody’s Servicewhich took place already at Galerie Wedding Berlin (2024), and Thailand Biennale in Phuket (2025).

Related links

Dealing in Distance Project Page