Through their aesthetic choices, Malcolm Guy and Demetri Estdelacropolis’ film bridges art with activism, addressing themes like colonialism, imperialism, and poverty while intertwining these issues with the Filipino people’s fight against systemic injustices and the fostering of Third World revolutionary consciousness. The urgency and importance of this approach cannot be overstated.
“His memoir allows us to see not only his success and glory, but also his faults and a vulnerability rarely seen from him.”
Friends sometimes turn a blind eye to the shortcomings and excesses of their friends but we have always overlooked what the US has done to our country over the past century. The myth of friendship persists which allowed the US to expand its bases and military presence while claiming that all this is for our own good. To punish us for the sins of the few ungrateful ones, they even asked a former bully to play their war games in our backyard.
“The imperialist powers of the United States force our country to remain semi-colonial and semi-feudal, with Marcos Jr. acting as a willing puppet. Foreign companies, in collusion with big-business oligarchs, plunder our natural resources, receiving a green light from the government through the enactment of neoliberal policies.”
But unlike the movie, there’s no dysfunction in this symbiotic dynasts. There is stability with the cycle, with their name, and the system in politics that leaves them entrenched: patronage, ayuda, projects for barangays in exchange of loyalty, or sometimes there will be no programs at all.
Rural women condemned the Department of Agrarian Reform’s complicity in massive land-grabbing by the Villars, Aranetas, Cojuangcos, Ayalas, and foreign investors.
The Al Aqsa Flood is a significant moment in the Palestinian resistance against Israel’s ongoing occupation and genocide.
In Cagayan de Oro City, an artist group combats disinformation and misinformation about Martial Law through a documentary film.
Nakaangkla ang transpormasyon ng edukasyon sa buod ng namamayaning politika sa bansa. Paalala ito na hindi pwedeng ang tore ng kaalaman sa loob ng klasrum ay ihiwalay sa kalagayan ng lipunan. Hindi pwedeng malaya ang unibersidad pero nananatiling pyudal ang kaisipan sa bansa. Ang paniwalang ito ang nagtulak sa akin, sampu ng iba pa, na suungin ang isang landas na maaaring palabas ng paaralan subalit ang inspirasyon at motibo ay pagbutihin ang kagalingan ng lahat ng paaralan.
That is why I think this is a missed opportunity for a festival to demonstrate how it can protect, through its mandate, a work which, like the rest, claims to reveal truth in the face of power.
The documentary is disturbing as it throws at us painful truths.