The premise of Dear And Unhappy is a simple question: what of Josephine Bracken? Rizal’s wife and / or lover, depending on who you believe. Or depending on your internalized racism against the Irish woman our National Hero was enamored with — it is after all why Bracken remains marginalized in narratives about Jose Rizal’s life; it also has arguably spawned multiple texts about Bracken — the less we know about someone the more exciting our stories about her. (more…)
Boses ng Masa is deceptively simple and painfully familiar, which is what’s both good and bad about it: the discussion is worth having, but you can see that ending from a mile away.
It’s not that you’ve seen this before, as it is that you have lived it.
The Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) is all of six months away, and here we are already talking with such passion about what the film industry needs and what the audiences deserve, quality versus commercial, small film producers versus big production companies, new versus old, change change change.
There is very little that we know so far, probably owing to what recently resigned MMFF Execom Member Roland Tolentino has said is a “confidentiality clause” on their work with MMFF.
What we do know is this. Four films have already ensured their spots in the MMFF 2017 roster, three of which hark back to the tried and tested blockbuster films of old. Three members of the MMFF Execom have resigned because the current committee is moving in the direction of “putting too much emphasis on commerce over art” (Statement, July 5). Those who benefited from last year’s “changes” are raising a ruckus. Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) Chair Liza Diño is being questioned for deciding to stay as part of the Execom.
We are being told that this is a waste of last year’s gains. Yet no one wants to talk about what those gains were exactly. (more…)
The shameless conservatism in Nick Lizaso’s press release about his plans and vision for the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), is ironic when one considers that we have a President who questions Catholicism and dogmatism time and again, and who insists on his freedom of speech – if not his freedom to offend – over and over.
President Duterte unilaterally installed Lizaso as CCP head. But even the President himself would not pass the rules and regulations that Lizaso is set to make for culture, given how he considers this “mission to be almost Pentecostal for it is all about Apostolate for Art and Culture.”
Yes, to the cultish feels of Lizaso’s statements. And yes, he will go so far as to push for censorship, because he has done it before. As member of the CCP Board in 2011, Lizaso stood for the closure of the exhibit Kulo at the CCP Gallery because of Mideo Cruz’s work “Poleteismo,” a critique of conservative ideologies such as Catholicism, which mainstream media had spun into a controversy. Conservatives filed a case against Cruz and the CCP Board – except for Lizaso, because he had stood for the closure of the exhibit. (more…)
President Duterte’s installation of Nick Lizaso as head of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) is painfully ironic – if not dangerously so.
On the one hand, it is clear that this President doesn’t care much about culture, so one wonders why he would appoint any of his men to these cultural leadership positions. On the other, one can see this as a statement in itself about what Duterte thinks about culture: anyone can lead it, never mind that he is incredible, never mind that he is unproductive, never mind that he speaks about art like it’s the 1940s, and likens the work he must now do to building a Church.
“This mission is almost Pentecostal for it is all about Apostolate for Art and Culture. I enjoin every Filipino citizen to help me in this Apostolate – spreading the good news of art to all the corners of this archipelago. For it is art that will save us as a nation, as a people, as one humanity.”
That comes from Lizaso, Duterte-installed CCP Head. Apparently out to build a religious cult while he’s at it. (more…)