Philippine Cinema and the Migrant Archipelago
In collaboration with TBA21 and Casa Asia, the museum is presenting a film cycle comprising a selection of films that address themes relating to both the exhibition Search for Life by Stephanie Comilang and to Filipino culture.
The five selected films, directed by Anthony Chen, Shireen Seno, Martin Edralin, Hanna Espia and Miko Revereza, offer alternative views on diasporic and migrant identities and on family relationships marked in some cases by critical or traumatic life experiences and in others by resilience and transformation. The protagonists are displaced people, individuals who have left their country of origin, facing the risk of losing their identity due to the necessity to become part of another world; a world which frequently rejects them and fails to recognise their rights.
The feature film Ilo Ilo reconstructs the story of one of the thousands of Filipino women hired as domestic workers in Hong Kong and other places around the world, while Islands, Transit, Big Boy and Nowhere Near illustrate the journey of those who accept the orphanhood of the displaced, compelled by economic precarity and the will to survive. These are five titles which encourage reflection on the great diasporas of the past and the present and on the exploitation of migrants in the labour market in their place of arrival.
There is a direct parallel with Stephanie Comilang’s work in the exhibition Search for Life, in which the artist metaphorically illustrates constant migratory processes by evoking the annual migration of monarch butterflies from Canada to Mexico through Florida and Southern California.
Some disappear along the way, but most are examples of survival and resistance.
Director of the cycle: Menene Gras Balaguer, director of Culture and Exhibitions at Casa Asia.
With special thanks to Raya Martin, film director of Filipino origin, who made the selection of films.
With the support of:
With the collaboration of:
