No matter the distance of Kalinga from the main cities of the Philippines, people—not only from the country but from all over the globe—travel all the way up to this little town nestled in the northern mountains of Luzon, just to meet the legendary Whang-Od or have their skins inked by her hands.
Such is the story of Brent Foster, a filmmaker from Canada, who traveled to the Philippines for the chance to meet Whang-Od and share her work to the world through his film. Brent writes to us:
“For the past year and half, I’ve been working on While I’m Here, The Legacy Project as a personal passion project alongside an incredible team of friends/colleagues who are all volunteering their time and efforts to make this project happen.
We’ve set out to tell the story of six different people who are in their older years and are doing incredible things. The idea is to tell their stories, while they’re still here and in the act of doing these incredible things. I started this project after someone close to me passed away before I had the chance to tell his story. I had let time pass, and work get in the way, and missed out on the chance. That’s how this project was born.
Because it is a self-funded passion project, initially, I thought we’d keep the stories within North America. We told the story of The San Diego Highwayman, a Mississippi Bluesman, and a Fly Fisherman, all who have made incredible impacts on others.
When it came time to look for our next story, we received a nomination from a woman named Guill Ramos in The Philippines. Guill is a fixer/translator, and when we saw Whang-Od’s story and the fact she was passing the tattoo tradition onto a new generation, we knew we had to take the project to a global level and travel to meet her and tell her story. The rest is history!
We thoroughly enjoyed our time with her and her Grand-niece, Grace. It was an honor spending time with them, and we hope they feel we did their story justice.”
Watch the short film here:
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