A collaboration with Taiwan International Documentary Festival on the recent history of Filipino documentary film.
Given the complex history of the Philippines, when Philippine documentaries rooted in realism are bridged with the idea of ‘necessary fiction’, all kinds of nuanced meanings emerge. The gesture of a ‘necessary fiction’ becomes something vital, an urgent necessity in the face of cruel, everyday reality.
The selection of 17 films in this programme juxtaposes classics from the 1980s onwards along with some more recent works, emphasizing the filmmakers’ distinctive personal touches in a multifarious range of forms. They present multiple aspects of a nation that in its very essence rejects over-simplification. Through exploration in history, geography, culture, folklore, religion, and race spanning time and space, an uproar named ‘the Philippines’ bursts out of these collective bodies of work.
The films in this online program were handpicked by Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF) from its Focus Programme at 2022 festival edition ‘Necessary Fictions: Negotiating Realities in Post-national Philippine Documentaries’ co-curated by Merv ESPINA, an artist and researcher based in Quezon City, Metro Manila. Learn more via the TIDF Focus Programme timeline & publication.
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