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TEENAGE WASTELAND, NOW A PLAYGROUND OF SOCIAL RELEVANCE: Revisiting our youth at a time of pandemic

By Gem Marquez




The coronavirus pandemic has been engulfed at the margins of our lives for more than a year now, robbing the remaining years of our youth and our chance to explore it. We can’t help but face the casual cruelty of the political environment in our country that has been the root of undisruptive language pleading for justice and peace, which extends to different forms of art like film. Concomitant to political adversity is the persisting creative work of our local film industry to be a conduit of social awareness by releasing films for the youth and by the youth; films that possess mundane and profound concepts with high and strong emotional quotient, intending to open our minds to remind us that we, the youth, and our youth can be our own hope in the face of social and political belligerence.


Here are five Filipino films that you can watch to reopen, reimagine, and revisit sentimental and spontaneous accounts of youth, now imbued with a social purpose.



1. Alingawngaw sa Panahon ng Pagpapasya (Echoes in the Midst of Indecision) dir. Hector Calma (2015)


It’s never foreign, it’s still all too familiar even after 49 years. A 24-minute somber and fearless black and white short that gives us a glimpse of a family’s social and political struggle as the family’s diverging views arise when Nita (Alessandra de Rossi) is confronted to choose between joining the armed struggle or to protect her family and be protected by his husband’s (Andre Tiangco) apolitical instinct during the “Bagong Lipunan” era under the Martial Law. This is a short that is witnessed in the eyes of a child’s perspective (Red), which later on contributed to his decisive political awakening.


You can watch it here for free, but you can also donate any amount before unlocking: https://moov.cinemacentenario.com/films/5f72f1407f38700117a976f1


2. Taya dir. Adi Bontuyan (2013)


We rarely see it, but our childish acts and the intricacies of the adult world may be done in different ways yet strangely share something in common, making the world upside down. A nostalgic 9-minute short social commentary that is centered on a 12-year-old boy who’s exposed by his neighborhood friends to different traditional Filipino games, as a portrayal of social issues paralleled to various socio-political events in our society.


You can watch it here for free, but you can also donate any amount before unlocking:


3. Faculty dir. Jerrold Tarog (2010)


Have you ever been in a passion-fueled discussion with your friends, parents, or with a stranger online regarding their class privilege? Maybe you’ll find yourself in this steamrolled 8-minute short that has a theatrical touch which concentrates an unrelenting barrage of opinions of two private-school teachers bickering on the limitations of private education and student activism led by Teacher Joan (Che Ramos) among students belonging in upper-class families, under a conservative system that condemns such acts.


These kids are in a perfect position to influence society when they graduate. They’re in the upper class, they belong to influential families.”

You can watch it here for free: https://vimeo.com/11659044


4. Cleaners dir. Glenn Barit (2019)


If you want to revive high school memories and sit through bursts of nostalgia that happened during your fledgling years in Catholic school, Cleaners is just the right movie to cry and laugh to. A coming-of-age film that interlocks the stories of students from a high school cleaners’ group in three chapters, presented through a stop motion technique by highlighting frames with fluorescent colors and scanning them one by one from 30,000 original black and white images.


The film title moved past its trivial meaning and affixed its theme "cleanliness" in every chapter which deals with the pressures among boys and girls to be clean and fair while finding out that the world is just dirty and facile in any case.



It will also soon be available on Rewired platform from April 26, 2021 to May 9, 2021.


5. Rakenrol dir. Quark Henares (2011)


Henares’ work is a homage to the OPM scene that is filled with local pop culture references starred by free-spirited characters who have had the inexhaustible verve for music since high school. But that doesn’t end there, its deep reservoir of good includes their experiences with satanic S&M bands, samurai swindlers, narcissistic rockstars, the pretentious Philippine art community and the freakiest music video auteur ever.


If you miss attending gigs of Sugarfree, Sandwich, Peryodiko, Urbandub, and Eraserheads, or live gigs in general, may you have a nice trip down to the memory lane as you watch this.


For a further sense of nostalgia, you can also read Philbert Dy’s film review on Rakenrol here: https://boxd.it/1twA1d


Rakenrol is available on Netflix and iWant TV.


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