Directed by British filmmaker Joanna Bowers and released earlier this year in Hong Kong, the documentary has garnered wide media coverage.
Speaking at the screening, Ms Bowers said she wanted to call attention to domestic helpers — a segment of society that often looks upon themselves as invisible — and remind them of their importance to households. When making the film, she had encountered women who were surprised someone wanted to delve into their lives.
Joanna Bower (left), the director and Tony Verb, the producer of the documentary, The Helper. The Singapore screening of the documentary took place at The Projector on 22 Oct 2017. It features domestic helpers. Photo by Najeer Yusof.
Pleased to be able to share a little behind-the-scenes action from a recent commercial shoot I did for Cathay Pacific in conjunction with the agency Eight Partnership from Hong Kong. Eight had spent a really long time work on the rebranding of Cathay and the cornerstone of that was an update of the livery design on the airplanes themselves.
Cathay is one of the most iconic Hong Kong brands in existence and the goal of this short film was to tell the story of how and why the livery needed updating and explore the chronological process that the designers used to reimagine the brand for a modern day consumer. I was lucky enough to have one of my favorite cinematographers Jack Lam on board for the shoot!
Adding to the challenge of the filming (other than hoping that the planes would be where we wanted them on the shoot day) was that I was also 5 months pregnant whilst directing, so not able to run around quite as much as I might usually on set! It didn’t hold me back though – lucky to always have a PA nearby with a chair!
We shot some incredible visuals and created some really powerful and dynamic storytelling for the brand that came together with some awesome VFX shots once we moved into post-production.
Added bonus was that the Cathay Pacific staff members we cast were naturals on camera and took direction really well!
And we had a really fantastic team on board for the production!
You can check out the finished film from this commercial shoot here: https://joannabowers.com/slider/cathay-pacific-livery-commercial-director/
“Nobody migrates for work for fun. If you have a choice in it you are called an expat, but for people like Hong Kong’s domestic helpers, they just can’t stay in their own country because it’s impossible to support their family.”
“Joanna Bowers’ film following a volunteer choir of foreign domestic helpers as they prepare for a debut performance at Hong Kong music festival Clockenflap is an honest and heartfelt portrait of women leading challenging lives”
“These women are considered second-class citizens and often treated in a very unimportant disposable way,” says Bowers. “We wanted to see if we could elevate their status.”
Joanna Bowers is a woman on a mission. As a producer, filmmaker and mama she has always been passionate about telling stories while communicating larger issues. Inspired by her own helper’s story – and domestic helpers in Hong Kong – she set off to create an eye-opening (and hopefully “heart-opening”) documentary about these women’s lives.
This photo project was something I undertook whilst filming in China. I was there shooting some sustainability CSR content in Hebei province which took the form of a short documentary about cotton farmers implementing sustainable cotton farming practices. The project was a collaboration between the Better Cotton Initiative and several government and private sector NGOs.
I had a polaroid camera with me in my camera bag and when this first elderly farmer showed an interest in what we were filming I showed him some of our equipment and he was fascinated. I quickly understood that he’d like me to take a photo of him – and then our interpreter explained that he’d actually never possessed a photo of himself.
Quite quickly this became habitual – as a thank you to the farmers for helping us out by allowing us to film on their land or to film them working, we would offer to take a portrait for them to keep.
I loved seeing their individual reactions to the shots and where they would put them afterwards to keep them safe!
From their reactions when handed the photos it became pretty evident that for so many of these villagers it was their first time seeing themselves on film!
