Suchergebnisse

My documentary work throughout college has explored how large political histories are deeply and intricately embedded in personal narrative. Oblique Resistance is my first documentary to largely bridge the connections between how a single person's story can reflect a country's political evolution from past to present. Ramon's story is a contemplative step-back from the highly technical and investigative storytelling that has been done around Philippine President Duterte's controversial administration. The reflection seeks to provide an interpretation of current events in the Philippines through a historical and diasporic lens Making this film was an exceptionally challenging process that required a level of flexibility, creativity, and problem-solving I had not previously encountered before. It was my first attempt at making a film about a current issue that is not only complicated but proved dangerous for my subjects to speak freely about. I started with a much larger idea than the final product and practiced scaling down the visual and narrative scope of the piece while maintaining the desired quality of content. After multiple trials and errors with the various directions, I decided to focus on Ramon's story because of his direct engagement with specific histories of oppression in the Philippines and his evolution of support for President Duterte's ruthless campaign against drugs. The complex nature behind majority Filipino support for the current administration is embodied in Ramon's past detainment under the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his personal involvement with the current drug war. I used archival footage from the period when he was a student activist as a visual bridge between the slow, patient story he tells about his experience under the Marcos dictatorship to the present-day observational footage of him grappling with the effects of the drug war especially within immigrant community. The final decision to put my voice in the beginning brings the viewer immediately into the difficulties I ...