Jay Rosas

Nabunturan is a landlocked town in the province of Davao de Oro, in the southern part of the Philippines. But ten years ago, a community of independent filmmakers started carving a cinema that best exemplifies a cinema from the regions. Projected on an inflatable 20-feet projector screen in their municipal plaza, homegrown filmmakers started to tell their own stories with their own people as the first audience. 

From a handful of workshop films that jump-started the festival to the current diverse program featuring other regional cinemas from the Philippines, the Nabifilmex has become a local film destination and tourism draw. This year, the lone Davao de Oro film in the main competition slate is made by young filmmaker Hiro Saint Joshua Apus, who along with his contemporaries continues to produce films every year for exhibition at Nabifilmex. His film, Pangarap Ko Maging Superhero, a student film made while currently studying college in Davao City, reflects a mainstream sensibility that is a stark contrast to the social commentary dramas that have preoccupied their cinema. 

But still, at the heart of the festival, are the stories from its communities—depicting social realities revolving around a mining town, the vulnerability of youth to the intrusion of modern technology, and stories of families coming to terms with societal violence and neglect. Filmmaking at the margins but with larger-than-life stories to tell. 

This video essay will revisit four short films from the festival’s ten-year history, particularly those that tackle the realities of the small-scale mining industry marked by violence, labor precarity, and economic marginalization. Featuring the short films Pasuon, Makaakar, Naboc, and Tami-aw, the rural landscapes of Davao de Oro here are framed by filmmakers here not as bucolic escapes but as spaces of silent struggles. 

Note: This video discusses in detail the plot points in the short films. You may view Pasuon and Tami-aw on a popular free video streaming site. This video was completed under the Arts Equator Fellowship which the author is part of. Views expressed are solely of the writer.