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The Semiotics of Heidi Mendoza
Heidi Mendoza should be measured up to the same standards as the Kakampink’s vilification of the bobotante when Rodrigo Duterte or Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. won. That is, the meaning of her campaign should be measured up against an imagined population whose values do not align with the Dilawan disente or the Tapat Kakampink. After all,…
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To Think About the Future is to Arrive at a Decision
This piece is a mildly revised version of an essay that appeared in the 2023 issue of UP Cinema’s Kino Punch magazine which theme revolves around Fate and Future.
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Breaking the Glass Air
There is no salvation in the saying of words –But what weapon do we useagainst that which oppresses & chokes?Silence overwhelmsbut we must keep on inventing the wordthat will smashthe thick glass of air between us.Edel Garcellano, “Words” There is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons.Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript…
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On Cinema and Parapolitics
If there’s anything that the cancellation of the GMA Public Affairs’ Lost Sabungeros Cinemalaya premiere reveals to us, it is the nature of the Philippine parapolitics. If you have been following the writer-peasant rights advocate Jayvene Timblique in his socials, particularly in his twitter, you will recognize where we intersect in this topic. Jayvene introduced…
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On CCP’s Gawad Alternatibo
Almost a year ago, I was invited by my friend, Adrian Mendizabal, who was overseeing that year’s Gawad Alternatibo congress, to sit in one of the panels for Film Criticism with three other participants to say something about the “Role of Local Film Criticism and Cinephilia in the Critical Reception of Gawad Alternatibo and in…
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Celluloid Regression and Sadness
My kneejerk reaction to the trailer of Khavn’s soon-to-be-released film Makamisa is nothing less than disappointment – mainly due to the fact that the work is shot in celluloid. The trailer – and the film – closes the circle among the “trailblazers” of the so-called “Philippine New Wave” of the 2000s who regressed to using…
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Casting Doubt to a Barber’s Tale
I tweeted some days ago: “Weird how the perception towards Philip Salvador and his collaborations with Brocka shifted with his support for the Duterte Admin but never Nora Aunor whose support for the Marcoses has been unwavering since the 1970s.” This was just some off-the-butt thing, nothing to follow through. A sigh of frustration, perhaps. …
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Brief Note on David Bordwell
David Bordwell (1947 – 2024) exists enigmatically in my writings as an inspiration for taking a form-based understanding of film seriously. But as someone who did not take film as an undergraduate, I must learn about him the hard way. Since my entry in critical writing was through French / European theory, my Bordwell encounter…
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In Memoriam: Noli Manaig
screencap from Noli Manaig’s Michel de Certau’s Metaphors for Everyday Life Noli Manaig, poet, critic, and filmmaker, died last year at around November due to cancer, as narrated by his cousin, Nel, in an unusual update from their collective blog, the persistence of vision. I would not have found the news if I did not…
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When imperialist lapdogs bark: a response to Isagani de Castro’s “Is there a New Filipino Cinema Audience”?
This post is made in response to a question raised by a student of mine in class about an article written by a certain Isagani de Castro, Jr for Rappler titled “Is there a new Filipino Cinema audience?”[1] It’s within the similar vein of journalistic endeavor in film writing that Jason Tan Liwag’s article that…