Editor, writer and filmmaker Erwin Romulo curates this months screenings, the films complement MCAD’s current exhibition ‘the center will not hold’. These films look into the interrelation of film and migration, and forms of subverting, engaging, rethinking, proposing and resisting a challenging present.
Balikbayan #1
April 3, 5,& 7
Directed by Kidlat Tahimik Kidlat Tahimik began this film project inspired by Magellan’s slave, Enrique de Malacca, in 1979. A version of it premiered in Berlin in 2015 and was awarded the Caligari Prize, but that hasn’t stopped Tahimik from continuing work on the film. A film still in flux, every edit, its very latest to be shown for the first time in public, gives us an insight into the film’s evolution and a “time-lapse” glimpse into the process of one of the country’s most vital artists.
S-Express Program of Alexis Tioseco
April 10 & 12
The first series featuring films from the Philippines was in 2005 and was curated by the late Alexis Tioseco. Films include Raymond Red’s A Study for the Skies, Auraeus Solito’s The Brief Lifespan of Fire, Act 2 Scene 2, Suring & the Kuk-ok, and Christopher Gozum’s Gugurlis Ed Banua.
Revisiting S-Express Program of Alexis Tioseco with Philbert Dy
April 12, 3:00PM
The S-Express series was part of the Asian Film Symposium, a now-defunct event held in Singapore that invited film curators from around Southeast Asia to present a short program of films from their country that could speak to the current state of their independent cinema. In 2009, the Philippines was the focus of the symposium, and film critic Alexis Tioseco was invited to put together the national program. Now, a decade later, we return to the Filipino S-Express program to reassess the state of our cinema.
Roxlee’s Animated Shorts
April 24, 26, & 28
Directed by Roxlee
More than any art-form, cinema—in particular animation—can closely trace its progression alongside technological changes. In both we can sense in a very visceral way how the Filipino creative mind engages with advancements in the field and grapples with the medium.
FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
