History of the Underground

In a small town, a painter's art comes to life as he paints idyllic dogs that loll inside the old church merged with an old woman's folk piety. His young daughter witnesses all this as she walks in faith.

A 2012 documentary about the making and the legacy of the 1982 drama masterpiece directed by Ishmael Bernal that ended up being one of the greatest Asian films of all time. The revelations about the theory of "Who killed Elsa?" will be answered and also, the impact of the film to the Filipino culture and society.

Rigodon follows the spiritual journey's of three Filipino immigrants in New York City whose lives intertwine in the age of racial profiling and government crackdowns.

A bride walks on the desert. She takes off her bridal ornaments and turns into a harlot. A multitude of people crawl on their bellies, become sick and soon die. A volcano erupts. White ashes of lahar cover the earth. The bride remembers her betrothal and repents--symbolically paving the way for the resurrection of her people. A final bridal march into a new heaven and earth takes place.

The Filipino-American War is quite possibly the past century’s least known armed conflict, especially troubling as its horrors foreshadowed so many of the horrors to come. Everything that we later saw in the Korean, Vietnam and, most recently, the Gulf Wars - from water boarding to search-and-destroy tactics - already happened during the USA’s first major 'civilizing mission' abroad, as it was sold to the public at the time. In the decade following the Spanish-American War, more Filipinos were killed by US troops than by the Spanish during the 300 years of colonial rule. More than 1 million Filipinos died between 1899 and 1913. This experimental documentary about the Philippine-American War of 1899 combines archival photographs and turn of the century film, digital video and 16mm footage to create memories of a forgotten history. A contemporary Filipina-American narrator weaves this complex history through historiography, experimental documentary and intercultural cinema.

A young woman witnesses the beginnings of a revolution during Martial Law.

In the future, farming on Earth is outlawed due to the toxic environment and all agriculture is done off-world. But despite the ban, some scientists and farmers resist.

A short experimental documentary on the loss of urban spaces and the fight to reclaim them as pedestrians, commuters, and PUV drivers face a transport crisis in the Philippines.

The tale of an activist’s journey during the turbulent years of Martial Law, until his capture in the mountains and the dark, nine years of imprisonment that followed, leading to his birth as a poet.

A documentary on National Artist for Literature Jose Garcia Villa, whose first love was painting and whose sensuous prose got him into trouble as a college student. He would later move to New York City to become a celebrated writer pushing the boundaries of poetry.

The film is an exploration of the queer body’s struggle to attain validation and evade exploitation. In a society where queer identities have always struggled to be recognized, our bodies have often been a medium of our expression and avenue for satisfaction. However, we, as a community, have subjected ourselves as victims to a system that exploits our vulnerabilities and bodies, to the point of moral decay.

A young filmmaker is bent on recreating forgotten massacres from Philippine history, but when she begins shooting at a site where 1,000 men, women, and children were slaughtered, angry spirits are awakened and the lives of her team and the local villagers are put in peril.

The story of Nick Joaquin, who only accepted the National Artist Award on the condition that the Marcos administration release a well-known writer who was being unjustly detained during Martial Law.

A documentary on Gilda Cordero-Fernando's fashion theater show that was staged at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1995. “Is it a play? Yes, but more than. Is it a drama? Of course, but more than. A fashion show, I was told. Not quite,” Cordero-Fernando wrote in “My love affair with the ‘saya.’” Jamming on an Old Saya, staged in 1995 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, was all those things and more. Designers, couturiers, and artists reinterpreted the traditional dress for an anything-but-traditional event that included “dancers and an almost-nude man painted gold climbing a rope.”

A critical look at the proliferation of the mail-order bride industry in Asia and its representations of Asian women in the West.

A documentary on the life and works of Ishmael Bernal