Director Deocampo at center stage for Philippine film fest<\/p>\n
By Bruce Emond<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Tall, slim and boyish at 42, Nick Deocampo does
\nnot look like someone all too ready to rattle the moral
\nconventions which define society.<\/p>\n
But the independent filmmaker has made his art a mission to
\ndelve beneath the veneer of decorum which governs our lives,
\nputting at center stage the human flotsam and jetsam who are so
\noften swept aside for the good of the grand picture.<\/p>\n
His works -- some of them focusing on marginalized women,
\nchild prostitutes and transvestite entertainers of his native
\nPhilippines -- have been commissioned by such organizations as
\nJapan's NIK and London's Channel 4. They have been feted at
\ninternational film festivals around the globe and earned him a
\nreputation in some circles as the "moral conscience" of the
\nPhilippine film world.<\/p>\n
Deocampo remembers falling in love with images on screen as a
\nboy when his mother took him to see Fellini's Satyricon in a
\nrundown movie theater near their home on a small island off
\nLuzon.<\/p>\n
"There are parts of the film where the characters turn to the
\ncamera and speak directly to it, like they are talking to you.
\nFor me it was like an affirmation. I was touched by that."<\/p>\n
He later moved to Manila to study theater arts at the
\nUniversity of the Philippines and continued on to a one-year film
\nscholarship in Paris. His coming of age as an independent
\nfilmmaker was during the waning years of the Marcos dictatorship
\nin the early 1980s.<\/p>\n
"I realized that short films were an alternative to commercial
\ncinema, that it could redefine what cinema is as an alternative
\nspace," Deocampo said at his hotel in Central Jakarta, where he
\nhas come to show his films this weekend at Teater Utan Kayu in a
\nfestival of Philippine short films.<\/p>\n
"The films also serve a social function in showing things like
\npoverty, politics, prostitution, defying censorship."<\/p>\n
It has also been an opportunity for him as an Asian to give
\nhis perspective because "so much of our history has been written
\nby white people and seen through their eyes".<\/p>\n
His first film, Oliver, made in 1983, was a documentary of a
\ntransvestite entertainer living with his young son and
\ngrandmother in a Manila slum. It was the first of what he calls
\nhis "Super 8" trilogy, which also included Children of the Regime
\n(1985), about how child prostitutes are served up like candy to
\nforeign pedophiles in a small town, and Revolution Happens Like a
\nRefrain in a Song (1987), Deocampo's personal account of the
\nPeople Power revolution.<\/p>\n
He continued to make acclaimed films in the 1990s, such as the
\n16 mm Private Wars and The Sex Warriors and the Samurai. He
\ncontinues to direct today but he is also a scholar and teacher.
\nHe is nurturing young talent through his Mowelfund Film Institute
\nand his month-long visit to Jakarta is part of an Asian Public
\nIntellectual Fellowship from The Nippon Foundation to study film
\nin several Asian countries.<\/p>\n
With the upsurge in technology, these are exciting and
\nchallenging times for filmmakers, Deocampo said.<\/p>\n
"The old economic idioms are changing, and it's coming into
\nAsian societies and film, too. It's not going to be about
\nproducing for the mass market anymore, but about niche markets,
\nwhere people will be choosing what they want to view."<\/p>\n
Four of Deocampo's films and seven by other Philippine
\nfilmmakers will be shown on Saturday and Sunday.<\/p>\n
Private Wars (1996, 60 minutes). To be shown on Saturday at
\n4:30 p.m. The story of Deocampo's search for his father, who left
\nthe family when the filmmaker was still a boy.<\/p>\n
"In this I was able to put together three layers of history --
\nthe history of a nation, the history of a family and my personal
\nhistory," Deocampo said. It was also a means for him to confront
\nhis own "private war" about his sexual orientation.<\/p>\n
It will be followed at 7 p.m. by the showing of other shorts:<\/p>\n
Manila Child (Nonoy Davidas, 1993, six minutes), an animated
\nstory of a poverty-stricken mother desperately trying to dispose
\nof her baby.<\/p>\n
In Manila (Mike Alcazeren, Josephine Atienza and Ricky
\nOrellana, 1989, about six minutes). An impressionistic portrait
\nof the Philippine metropolis.<\/p>\n
Lightning (Joey Agbayani, 1989, 10 minutes). A rambunctious
\ncomic book satire of a truth-seeking journalist up against a
\ncrooked politician and his private army. Like Pinnochio's nose,
\nthe newsman's pencil acts as a barometer of the lies being fed
\nhim.<\/p>\n
True Blue American Coconut Grove (Luis Paredes Quirino & Donna
\nSales, 1989, nine and a half minutes). An experimental film
\nproduced by the Goethe Institut Manila, it is the story of "a guy
\nwith a gun and a girl who dies in the end".<\/p>\n
The Other Side of the Volcano (Ellen Ramos, 1997, 10 minutes,
\nanimation).<\/p>\n
A Study for 'The Skies' (Raymond Red, 1989, 10 minutes). A
\nman's struggle to reach the heavens.<\/p>\n
Trip (Jon Red, 1993, 11 minutes). A young boy goes to the city
\nfor the first time and learns about urban life through the
\ncharacters on a jeepney.<\/p>\n
Only Deocampo's films will be shown on Sunday, beginning at 5
\np.m. (there will be a talk led by the filmmaker at 7 p.m.).<\/p>\n
Isaak (1993, 10 minutes). A meditation on the complex
\nrelationship between fathers and sons. "It's utterly allegorical,
\nthe story of how sons can become the victims of a very
\npatriarchal system," Deocampo said, adding "it's my most
\npsychoanalyzed film".<\/p>\n
Memories of Old Manila (1993, 22 minutes). The story of
\nManila, in Deocampo's vision once the envy of the Orient but now
\nsunk into despair.<\/p>\n
"It's a syncretic view of my country's history in 22 minutes,
\nof an imaginary journey into the very real experience of 500
\nyears of colonization."<\/p>\n
The Sex Warriors and the Samurai (1995, 26 minutes). Deocampo
\ncalls transvestites his "heroes" for what they have to face in
\nsociety, and this is the story of a Filipino female impersonator
\nworking in Japan, which occupied the Philippines in World War II.<\/p>\n
"This is really a portrait of how a female impersonator has
\nbeen socially processed to become a human commodity for the
\nentertainment capital of Japan, but it's also a reassessment of
\nthe geopolitics between our two countries which shared a very
\nbitter experience," Deocampo said.<\/p>",
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