A group of filmmakers all over Asia has come together to put up their short films for free viewing online. All they ask in return is for donations to aid our healthcare workers and frontliners as they battle the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
(The Met Will Be Offering Free Streams of Its Best Operas During the COVID-19 Closure)
They have shared an online document with the following message penned by Carl Chavez:
First of all, I hope you are all safe during this pandemic crisis we’re all facing now. My heart goes out to all of you during these very trying times – of course, especially to our frontliners, our brave healthcare workers, who are risking their health to make sure this virus is contained and of course to the poor and the elderly who need utmost protection especially during this crisis.
In light of this, my fellow filmmakers and I are happy to share with you some of our short films that you can watch during this month-long community quarantine, and the good news is, you can keep yourself entertained with our films for free!
In return, all we are humbly asking is for you to donate to our healthcare workers and frontliners so that they can be equipped with a sufficient supply of PPE (personal protective gear) and for the protection of the poor and the elderly.
No doubt these are very difficult times, but if we work together, we can beat this and come out of it stronger than ever.
You may make donations to the following contact persons:
- Adet Idjao (PGH Property and Supply Office) – 8-554-84000 loc 3000/3004
- Ospital ng Maynila
- Kenneth Guevarra: +639190048902
- BPI Account Name: Kate Kollin; Account Number: 3289-3507-63
- BDO Account Name: Nadja Tarrazona; BDO Account Number: 011080015491
- GCash Name: Elijah Legaspi; Number: 09055581206
- Paypal Name: Elijah Legaspi; Link: www.paypal.me/elijahlegaspi
- Kaya Natin! Movement
- BPI Account Number: 3081-1173-72
- The UP Medical Foundation, Inc.
- BDO Account Number: 353-0094-018; Email Address: upmf1980@gmail.com
- Caritas Manila – Via Lazada App: https://www.lazada.com.ph/shop/caritas-manila/
- Sagip Buhay Medical Foundation, Inc.
- Metrobank Account Numbers: Peso #044-304466181-1 (SA); Dollar #044-204401415-1 (SA); Metrobank Swift Code: MBTCPHMM*kindly send a copy of your deposit slip thru e-mail: sagipbuhay2015@yahoo.com
The full list of short films is as follows:
THAILAND
GAZE AND HEAR by Nontawat Numbenchapol
This video art experiment and survey on human’s visual and sound perception which influence the way of life, national integration, and people’s belief in fact. The video changes the way of human’s usual perception by using a Thai ancient tale read by a calm voice, along with the annoying visual and sound.
password: eye
BANGKOK DYSTOPIA by Patipol Teekayuwat
A high school boy and a young prostitute meet by chance on the night of the 2014 military coup d’état in Thailand when a curfew forces them to get off the bus. The two are initially distrustful of each other but start to bond when they realize the similarities in their circumstances. However, reality eventually catches up with them, leading to a sad and surreal end.
https://vimeo.com/227120008
password: BDP2017
MALAYSIA
ANG PAGLALARAWAN NG KULAY PULA SA ISANG BULAG (Describe The Color Red To A Blind Man) by Bradley Liew
A long time ago, young mermaid (or an actress playing the role of a mermaid) ran away from the sea to find out what it was like living among humans. The mermaid grew up experiencing all that she wanted but at the cost of her being tainted by human nature. On her last day of whatever magic she has left would allow her to return to her people, she contemplates returning to a land of perfection.
password: red
KAMPUNG TAPIR by See Wee Aw
A Sunday afternoon, migrant worker Anne and her husband leave their five years old daughter from Kampung Tapir (Tapir Village), Malaysia.
On the way to Singapore, the bus their ride hit a wild Malayan tapir that wanted to cross the road, but no one is eager to save it.
In the struggling of choosing a country to settle down, Anne founds that she is like this endangered species, still drifting places to find their own better life.
https://vimeo.com/187373517
password: kampungtapir
PHILIPPINES
PLANO (Plan) by Antoinette Jadaone
Plano is a short film about a man who didn’t pick on someone his own size, and a girl who seemed too little to be vengeful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad37p1t8eF4
MAY DINADALA (Weight) by Giancarlo Abrahan
The wife of a middle-aged stone miner bears child while he is in a relationship with an enchanted black figure. A fettered commitment to an unborn child he already loves and a wife he despises torments the man. The enchanted lover offers him uncertain seduction. And he must choose, just as every dark creature must only pick between painful fates.
password: weight
GIKAN SA NGITNGIT NG KINAILADMAN (From The Dark Depths) by Kiri Dalena
A woman mourns the drowning of a young activist that took place years ago. She sinks into herself and recreates a story that coalesces memory, delirium, and forgetting.
password: gikan2017
SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE by Carl Chavez
JOSHUA, a timid teenager, comes home one night after being beaten up by the school’s bully. Feeling the urge to avenge himself, he decides to take matters into his own hands. But things don’t go as planned. Now, he is left with no choice but to seek help from his policeman father.
password: imsorry2017
STUDY ON LUKAS IN LUKAS THE STRANGE by John Torres
Village miracles caught on tape: images of a river that must be crossed to erase heartaches imagined with a boy who has never experienced sorrow.
password: study
SILENT FILM by John Torres
Black-and-white sequence of contemporary urban life, jittery images recorded by a 1940s motion-picture camera, and a sleepy narration of words, written by Filipino poet and singer Lourd De Veyra.
MUSE by John Torres
A film inspired by birds, planes, and flight. Based on a poem by Filipino writer Allan Pastrana.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyxsKXXgfvc
AFTER NONOY ESTARTE by John Torres
Inspired by an artist’s drawings in the South, I saw paintings that depicted the indigenous people’s view of the origins of the world. The film is the tale of our nation and basic things: water, plants, body, and their own interaction through time.
password: estarte
ASTRI AND TAMBULAH by Xeph Suarez
Astri is a 16-year-old transwoman in a relationship with 17-year-old Tambulah. Although it’s an unusual sight in their community, nobody bothers them.
Subsisting on the coins people throw at them when they perform their traditional dance at the sea, everything is perfect except that Sama Badjao traditions and a pact made long ago require Astri to marry a woman she hardly knows.
password: astri&tambulah
IYO SI MALIK by Xeph Suarez
Toto, 8, and Jr, 10, are victims of recent armed conflict in their city. While playing among the war ruins, they discuss and re-enact their individual war experiences. This story is set in Zamboanga City after the standoff in 2013 between the forces of the Republic of the Philippines and a faction of the Moro National Liberation Front led by Habier Malik.
HILOM by Paulie Patindol
In a fishing village that’s been ravaged by a strong typhoon, the bond of twin brothers is disrupted by another young boy. h i l o m follows the journey of the brothers, Andres and Gael, as they find healing against the harsh landscape of an island that’s also trying to recover.
https://drive.google.com/Hilom
TO REMAIN IS TO HAVE BEEN LEFT by Pam Miras
A woman about to jump off a building gets caught in an unending time loop
https://drive.google.com/ToRemainIsToHaveBeenLeft
LABING DALAWA (Twelve) by Gino Santos
Twelve is a semi documentary-narrative focusing on multiple characters who experience different situations around the city in a span of 12 minutes.
EVERY OTHER TIME by Gino Santos
College and partying are almost synonymous with one another, so are making mistakes. The freedom we have during college can sometimes make us forget the tiniest of our responsibilities. After a night of hard partying, this guy realizes he left something behind.
ANG TANGKE (The Water Tank) by Gino Santos
In a country where an estimated 17million Filipinos still do not have sustained access to potable water, a little town expresses their gratitude for the blessings their water tank has given them.
https://www.youtube.com/TheWaterTank
IF YOU LEAVE by Dodo Dayao
Two amateur ghost hunters are hired to surveil an alleged haunted house. Nothing much happens. But just because you can’t see the patterns of strangeness, it doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
password: F A I T H
ANG MGA TURO NG GABI (Lessons of the Night) by Christian Villanueva
Over the course of one night, Juanita a teacher battling postpartum depression teams up with her delinquent student to retrieve something important for her. The film depicts the responsibility of a mother to her child, and how finding solace can affect humans.
https://drive.google.com/AngMgaTuroNgGabi
LOLA LOLENG by Che Tagyamon
A young woman returns to her hometown to meet her Grandmother Loleng who suffers from dementia. Together, they will unearth the old lady’s innermost secrets and wartime experiences.
password: hello
RUWEDA by Hannah Espia Farbova
Three people cross paths at a local town carnival, each with something to gain and to lose. One of them acquires it, the other two pay the price.
https://www.viddsee.com/video/ruweda
HASTA NA LANG SA DASON, (Until Next Time,) by Arden Rod Condez
A MOTHER retires as a maid due to an illness. Continuing the legacy of their kin, the mother’s DAUGHTER arrives from the province to assume her post.
Password: maidinthephilippines
ROLYO by Alvin Yapan
In between harvests, to supplement their income, Judith is sent by her father to catch birds which they would peddle come Sunday outside the church. On their trip to the city, Judith requests that they watch a movie after selling off all the birds. What Judith gets in return is a torotot (trumpet) made out of rolled-up film negatives. The story is set in Bikol where it is a practice among rural folks to surround the perimeter of their farmlands with film negatives to ward off birds eating the newly sown palay seeds.
PAANO NANGYARI ANG HINDI NANGYARI by Chad Vidanes
A family of activists faces struggles to make a change. A family gets their hand on a copy of the scandal of the president and an American actress and tries to use this as an instrument for change.
password: chadthesis
CINEMATIQUE by Kyle Nieva
Cinématique interweaves various art forms such as dance, painting, photography, and music to create a unique sensorial experience.
PUSONG BATO (Stone Heart) by Martika Escobar
Pusong Bato is a film-within-a-film about Cinta Dela Cruz, a faded actress who tries to relive and remember her glory days as a movie star in the 1970s.
AN KAPINUNAN KAN MGA ALON SA ADLAW (Where The Lake Ripples Begin) by Jenn Romano
After working abroad, El goes back to Buhi, Camarines Sur—a small town surrounded by various tales and legends. With the place is her lover (Ira), whom she regretfully left. When she tries to get her back, their fate seems to be one with the tales and legends of Buhi, one bound to tragedy.
https://drive.google.com/WheresTheLake
LISYUN QNG GEOGRAFIA (Geography Lessons) by Petersen Vargas
Before leaving his hometown Pampanga for good, Tib chances upon an old map that triggers him to retrace the places that are special to him and his high school best friend Tric.
password: geographylessons2014
CONTESTANT #4 by Kaj Palanca and Jared Joven
A young boy chances upon an old man watching a dated clip of himself as a cross-dressing boy. What he ultimately discovers aids both him and the old man towards a richer understanding of how the weight of life and identity should be carried.
password: contestant2016
ANAGOLAY “GODDESS OF THE LOST” by Iar Arondaing
This short film wields on the folkloric Tagalog deity of lost things Anagolay to try to present a simplified analysis of a more complex system that includes questions of who should have the power, understanding who holds power in the relationship of the higher authorities and the people and the influence of people around it. It is an iconoclastic stance on the personality cult and the seduction of power.
GAPAS by Iar Arondaing
Gapas opens with a naked old man emerging from rice grains. The man runs across the drought-suffering field. Then he is shown rope-tied to a giant rice god idol until finally, he finds a rusty sickle. The short experimental film shows the peasant situation–of repression, authority, struggle, and defiance.
password: gapas
ALIENS ATA (Maybe Aliens) by Glenn Barit
Two brothers deal with the sudden loss of a father and an eventual separation with their overseas-Filipino-worker mother. Some things are hard to grasp that’s why they turn to out-of-this-world things for an explanation. This is a film shot entirely with a drone.
https://www.viddsee.com/video/maybe-aliens
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