Documentaries

Pagbaylo: Losing Land to Solar Farms

Pagbaylo: Losing the Land to Solar Farms” brings to light the deft maneuvers by big landowners to convert vast tracts of land that are meant for distribution to its tenants into solar farms. This is part of the Student for Development video documentary project conducted by the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center (UP TWSC), in partnership with the Department of Political Science of the Université de Montréal (UdM).

Haw-As: Leaving the Sea

This documentary, made by Iya Cailao, Paula Ceracas, Lucien Beucher, and Marie Isabelle Rochon, is about an aging couple who have lived off the sea that is now being gobbled up by a town’s hunger for land. This documentary is set in Brgy. Bang-Bang, Cordova, Cebu that has long been under threat by reclamation plans. This is part of the Student for Development video documentary project conducted by the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center (UP TWSC), in partnership with the Department of Political Science of the Université de Montréal (UdM).

Naglalahong Pamana (Fading Heritage)

Panglima Kenisio Malasan is a traditional leader of a Palaw’an tribe. Through him, the tribe’s tradition is passed on to the next generation—a tradition rooted in the land. But the Panglima wonders how their way of life can endure in the face of relentless encroachment of palm oil plantations. In a poignant dialogue between father and son, the Panglima and his child share fears for the future of their tribe. “Naglalahong Pamana (Fading Heritage)” is the 2016 Active Vista Best Human Rights Short Film. It was also the Best Documentary Film and was the Golden Philippine Eagle Festival Director’s Choice at the Singkuwento International Film Festival (SIFF) by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).

Sa Rio Tuba

Rio Tuba in Palawan is the site of the one of the biggest nickel open pit mine in the Philippines. It is also home to a once thriving fishing community along the Togpon River. Bobby Siplan, fisherman, and Lagrimas Padilla, fish vendor, are both members of this community. Two lives whose daily struggle to make a living ebb and flow with the changes wrought upon the river by the mining industry. The mine promises a harvest of bounty. Bobby and Lagrimas think otherwise. This is their story. “Sa Rio Tuba” was screened to the public last 20 August 2015 (Thursday) at Room PH 400, Palma Hall, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines-Diliman. “Sa Rio Tuba” is a production of the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center (TWSC), in partnership with the Department of Political Science of the Université de Montréal (UdM) under the Student for Development project. Since 2011, undergraduate students from the UdM and interns from TWSC have collaborated to make short documentaries on a particular theme.

Kadena

For years, Roger has depended on his bicycle to go to his place of work in Metro Manila, and from there to safely pedal his way back home to his family in the outskirts of the city. “Kadena” chronicles how Roger moves along and lives through the monstrous sprawl that is Metro Manila–from the grunts of its monumental traffic jams to the glitzy hiss of its malls and skyscrapers. This is Roger on how the city has changed before his eyes, on how the desperate have tried to turn it into a place of refuge and the poor aspired for resilience amid its unending squalor. “Kadena” is about two lives on the road chained to each other: that of the city and Roger’s.

Minera

In the province of Benguet in northern Philippines, small-scale gold mining has been an important source of livelihood for centuries for indigenous communities. Artisanal and labor intensive, most of Philippine gold is still extracted with the simplicity of picks, shovels, human hands, and water; sometimes just besides large mining corporations. Men are thought of as the usual prominent actors in these communities. This documentary corrects this misimpression. Women miners are as essential to small-scale mining as the male workers. And unlike men, they must combine numerous daily responsibilities, in the household, the field, and the mine. However, these duties are balanced neither with compensation nor representation, in the family as well as in the community. This documentary is a story of the women miners of Itogon, Benguet who have moved mountains and have kept pushing on, how they have transcended the weariness of the body and the strictures of gender to live a life in their own terms and to unselfishly care for others.

Alas-as: Sitting on a Volcano

Would you build a school on top of a volcano? This is a story of how a community strategizes to provide education for their children amidst poverty and natural hazards, of what they are willing to compromise and sacrifice for their children to even just glimpse a future that they were not able to have for themselves. In the city of San Nicolas, in the Taal Volcano Island, an elementary school was built by the fishing community of Barangay Alas-as for their children. The island has been classified by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) as a high-risk area and a Permanent Danger Zone (PDZ), within reach of the second most active volcano in the Philippines. Despite many pleas for the residents to relocate somewhere safer, they have refused to leave the island– the only home they have ever known. Before the Alas-as Elementary school was built, children had to travel long distances and cross the lake to get an education. Though their children are going to school, the prospects of the community remain quite bleak as they belong to one of the poorest municipalities of Batangas. The conditions of the lake where they mainly draw their livelihood continue to deteriorate as the danger of life-threatening volcanic activity looms over the community. The documentary highlights the struggles and difficulties residents have had to face in order to obtain a basic education for their children. It chronicles how, in the face of the government’s failure to provide for them, residents have decided to take the matter into their own hands.

A Tide of Change: Vulnerability in a Changing Climate

“A Tide of Change: Vulnerability in a Changing Climate” is a product of the collaborative efforts of six young individuals from multidisciplinary perspectives from the University of the Philippines-Diliman and the University of Montreal, Canada. The video documentary aims to highlight the increasing vulnerability of people in regions previously unaffected by extreme weather disturbances in the case of Cagayan De Oro (CDO), Northern Mindanao through typhoon Sendong. It features the lives of Sendong victims in different resettlement communities in CDO, six months after Sendong’s wake—from the best rehabilitation practices in Xavier Ecoville to the inherent problems in resettlement camps—to build on the pressing need to go beyond the reactionary frame of disaster risk reduction and management to that of preparedness. Otherwise, tent cities could soon become the norm.

In the Philippines, Giving Birth Kills: Maternal Mortality in the Philippines

Entitled “In the Philippines, Giving Birth Kills: Maternal Mortality in the Philippines,” this video documentary was produced as part of the Students for Development Program of the University of Montreal’s Faculty of Education and Department of Political Science, in cooperation with the UP Third World Studies Center. This documentary gives a general overview of current practices in reproductive health in the Philippines. It gives a special focus on the state of public health services provided for Filipino mothers. Students Nicolas Descroix and Audrey-Maud Tardif from the University of Montreal and Barbie Jane L. Rosales and Cherry E. Sun from the University of the Philippines-Diliman constituted the production team for this documentary.