Peripheral Horizons:
On Political Filmmaking

Exhibition Walkthrough and Artist Talk
Saturday, June 11, 3:00pm – 5:00pm

with Aba Dalena, Kiri Dalena, Jose Olarte, and Jippy Pascua – whose works are currently featured in the ongoing exhibition There is Another Sky.

Guest Speaker: Rose Roque, on the topic of Sineng Bayan (People’s Cinema)

ABOUT THE TOPIC

In the 1980s, via the audiovisual works of filmmakers who collectively organized themselves, notably under the nongovernment group AsiaVisions (1982), along with filmmakers under the first-ever media cooperative Alternative Horizons (1986), and other progressive filmmakers in “unnamed” groups or as individuals, the SIneng Bayan (People's Cinema) came to being. One of these "unnamed" film collective output is Sabangan (1983) is a documentary about the plight of the Remontados of Tanay in Rizal and the proposed Kaliwa-Kanan Dam, a World Bank-funded project in support of Imelda Marcos' City of Man.

As the forerunner of political film collectives in the country, AsiaVisions consciously used the film as medium, undeniably, for propaganda-education and contributed to the people's protest movement that brought about the downfall of the then-Marcos dictatorship. More than this, the group was able to document, if not an entirety, significant events of the country's history countering the pro-Marcos establishment press dominating that time. The group persisted in their work even after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship. Their works include films centering on issues outside Metro Manila, like Kaigorotan (1986) in North Luzon and AsiaVisions' No Time for Crying (1987) set in Mindanao.

The tradition of SIneng Bayan is carried on by the current crop of film collectives that flourished since the advent of digital filmmaking in the country. Kodao Productions, Southern Tagalog Exposure, Tudla Productions, and Mayday Multimedia – collectives that continue to exist to date, along with Sine Patriyotiko, Tan-aw Multimedia, Pokus Gitnang Luson Multimedia, and Bicol xPress – those that unfortunately disbanded or are inactive, have similarly valuable audiovisual works as the AsiaVisions and AlterHorizons archival collection.

ABOUT THE GUEST SPEAKER

Rose Roque is a member of Cinema and Moving Image Research Assembly (CAMIRA), an international organization of film critics, academics, curators, and other practitioners. She will be graduating this June 2016 with the degree MA Araling Pilipino obtained from the University of the Philippines Diliman. Her master's thesis is entitled Sineng Bayan: Kasaysayan at Filmography ng mga Politikal na Kolektibong Pampelikula (1982 to 2014).

She earned her BA Communication Research from the College of Mass Communication from the same university in 2003. Since 2009, she is an instructor at the University of the Philippines in Manila, teaching Filipino, Philippine Literature, and Philippine Cinematic Arts.

She is also a member of the Society of Filipino Archivists for Film (SOFIA) since February 2013. In November 2013, she was a student of the first-ever Film Restoration School Asia organized by the National Museum of Singapore with Cineteca di Bologna, L'Immagine Ritrovata, and the World Cinema Foundation.

Admission to the event is free of charge.