Filmmaker taps into Imelda's power<\/p>\n
Ong Sor Fern, ANN\/The Straits Times\/Singapore<\/p>\n
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\nRamona Diaz's documentary on Imelda Marcos has received an award
\nat the Sundance Festival, divisive responses from Filipinos and a
\nlawsuit from the former first lady herself.
\n----------------------------------------------------------------<\/p>\n
Filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz spent a month trailing Imelda Marcos,
\nthe former first lady of the Philippines, with a camera crew in
\n1998.<\/p>\n
The result is a telling portrait of megalomania which won Diaz
\na nomination for the coveted Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance
\nFilm Festival in January this year. Imelda also won the Best
\nCinematography Award.<\/p>\n
For the genial 42-year-old filmmaker, Imelda is the
\nculmination of more than five years of research and work. The
\nproject began with a chance encounter with Imelda Marcos.<\/p>\n
Over the telephone from Baltimore in the United States where
\nshe is based, Diaz says that she first interviewed her for her
\nfirst feature project, Spirits Rising, in 1993.<\/p>\n
That documentary looked at the role played by middle-class
\nFilipino women in the People Power uprising which unseated
\nPresident Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.<\/p>\n
\"I just thought she's a big historical figure. For better or
\nfor worse, she's the best known Filipino in the world,\" says
\nDiaz.<\/p>\n
After the interview, Diaz asked the first lady if she would
\nconsent to being the subject of a film. She agreed. But it took
\nDiaz a while to raise funding for the feature.<\/p>\n
\"I first approached her with the idea in 1993 and we had the
\nfirst pre-production interview in 1996. The bulk of the film was
\nshot in 1998, when we followed Mrs Marcos to her hometown of
\nTacloban,\" Diaz recalls.<\/p>\n
\"To her credit, she honored her agreement even after all that
\ntime.\"<\/p>\n
For the filmmaker, the project was a chance to try to explore
\nthe person behind the persona.<\/p>\n
\"I wanted her to defend herself. Everything we brought up I
\nwanted her to be able to address. Which is what I told her when I
\npitched the film. It's not a valentine to her but it will be
\nfair.<\/p>\n
\"It's not a hit-and-run piece. I truly, truly believe it was
\nfair.\"<\/p>\n
The amount of time she spent with Imelda explains how she
\nmanaged to get her famous subject to talk about everything --
\nfrom the assassination of opposition leader Benigno \"Ninoy\"
\nAquino to the imposition of martial law in the Philippines.<\/p>\n
But while she may have cooperated with lengthy interviews
\nduring the shoot, she also later tried to have the movie banned.<\/p>\n
In June, when the movie was scheduled for a theatrical release
\nin the Philippines, she served papers on the film's distributor,
\nUnitel.<\/p>\n
She testified, weeping, in court that the movie made her out
\nto be a \"cheap flirt\" and an \"airhead, like a frivolous, wanton,
\nextravagant woman at the expense of the poor\".<\/p>\n
Diaz, who had to return to the Philippines to testify at the
\ntrial, says that the suit came from out of the blue. \"I was
\nreally surprised,\" she says.<\/p>\n
Imelda gained a temporary injunction, which was overturned 20
\ndays later.<\/p>\n
Once released, Imelda stampeded past Hollywood blockbusters
\nlike Spider-Man 2 and I, Robot in its opening weekend.<\/p>\n
It has since grossed over 14 million pesos (USS$423,770) at
\nthe box office. It is the only documentary to be released
\ntheatrically in the Philippines.<\/p>\n
While Imelda Marcos herself has become a figure of ridicule in
\nthe Filipino press, she still touches a raw nerve with the
\nFilipino people, many of whom either adore her passionately or
\nloathe her with a vengeance.<\/p>\n
As expected, her film has earned deeply divisive responses
\nfrom Filipinos who have seen it.<\/p>\n
\"They either say, 'You make her look so good', or 'You made
\nher look so bad'. They love it or they hate it. There is no in-
\nbetween,\" says Diaz:<\/p>\n
Making the film has made her appreciate the complexities of
\nthe woman who once wielded so much power as the wife of the
\nPhilippines' strongman.<\/p>\n
\"She's funny. She has a sense of humor which surprised me,\"
\nthe filmmaker says.<\/p>\n
\"People take issue when I say she's funny. But she can be
\nfunny and still be held accountable for the things she did.\"<\/p>\n
Diaz grew up in the Philippines under martial law, and left
\nthe country when she was 17 to pursue a degree in film and
\nphotography at Boston's Emerson College.<\/p>\n
She gained work experience in television after graduating,
\nincluding a five-year stint on the hit 1980s television series,
\nRemington Steele.<\/p>\n
Film-making was something she had wanted to do for as long as
\nshe could remember, she says. She is married to a half-Chinese,
\nhalf-Nepalese professor who teaches communications. \"He has the
\nadult job,\" she says with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Although she spends most of her time in the U.S., where her
\nseven-year-old daughter is growing up, she has returned to the
\nPhilippines occasionally to live and work. The longest stay was
\nafter her stint on Remington Steele in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
\"It was just after the Marcos regime had fallen. People were
\nso hopeful,\" she recalls wistfully.<\/p>\n
\"I went back to the Philippines thinking I was going to live
\nthere for a few months. I ended up staying four years.\"<\/p>\n
But she packed her bags once more to take on a postgraduate
\ndocumentary filmmaking course at Stanford University.<\/p>\n
Spirits Rising, which led her to that momentous meeting with
\nImelda Marcos, was made as part of her master's thesis.<\/p>\n
After spending so much time with the iron butterfly, she
\nadmits that her views of Imelda have changed.<\/p>\n
\"I thought she was crazy, going into the project. But she's
\nmuch smarter than she lets on. She could not have gotten that far
\nwithout really being aware of politics and the games that people
\nplay. She's very good at that,\" she says.<\/p>\n
\"It's been said that she's a product of the president. I no
\nlonger believe that. From the very beginning, she was a very
\nempowered woman. If she had not met the president at that age,
\nshe would have become something in her own right.<\/p>\n
\"She understands power intuitively. Her power at that age was
\nher beauty and she knew it.\"<\/p>",
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