Stephanie Comilang's Drone-Spirit Narrates Filipina Migrant Experience in Hong Kong

Stephanie Comilang creates films she terms "science fiction documentaries," blending documentary footage with fictional elements and personal narratives. Her 2017 work "Lumapit Sa Akin, Paraiso" (Come to Me, Paradise) runs 26 minutes and imagines Hong Kong's urban environment through the eyes of Filipina migrant women. A drone-embodied spirit named Paraiso narrates the film, addressing themes of displacement, isolation, and the search for meaning. The piece highlights how thousands of these women gather each Sunday in the city's financial district, creating temporary spaces of care, community, and self-determination outside their domestic workplaces. This collective presence enables Paraiso to transmit the women's images, voices, and messages across distances. Comilang's artistic practice consistently explores labor, technology, and postcolonial entanglement within frameworks of global mobility.