Diaz 'in disbelief' after Marcos' win

Diaz 'in disbelief' after Marcos' win

Hrvoje Hranjski, Associated Press/Manila

The woman who made an award-winning Imelda Marcos documentary
said Wednesday she was "in disbelief" that the flamboyant former
first lady won a court order temporarily halting the movie's
local premiere by claiming it mocked her.

Despite Mrs. Marcos' lawsuit, which is still pending in a
Manila court, Ramona Diaz said she stands by Imelda, a portrait
of the woman who dazzled the world with her beautification
projects and enormous shoe collection as the country languished
in poverty under her husband's dictatorship.

Diaz said young Filipinos should be able to see the movie.

"People who are 18 years old don't even know who Imelda Marcos
is," Diaz told reporters in her first reaction to the court's
decision to halt the screening. Imelda was to have opened in
Manila on Wednesday.

"For better or worse, she's the most well-known, most
recognized Filipino figure abroad," she said, adding that outside
the country, people "may not know where the Philippines is, but
they know Imelda Marcos and her 3,000 pairs of shoes."

Mrs. Marcos, 75, says she approved the film only as a school
project for Diaz's master's thesis at Stanford University, not as
a commercial movie. She also said it was full of "malice,
inaccuracies and innuendoes."

"How do you reply to something like that?" Diaz asked. "I've
been careful. I wanted to show a human side of her, beyond the
caricature. I stand by it."

"I'm in disbelief," she said. "I understand that she thought
it was a thesis film, but it was clear from the beginning that it
was going to be a film about her life made for public
consumption. And even if it were a thesis film, it would be for
public consumption too."

Distributor Unitel Pictures Inc. last week appealed the halt
to the Supreme Court, saying it involves crucial democratic
issues. It said the halt was an "assault not only on the liberty
of the press but on the very bedrock of democratic government."

Foreign film reviews say Mrs. Marcos does most of the talking
in the movie, describing how she became a beauty queen and later
married Ferdinand Marcos. She also talks about her philosophy of
life while sketching on a notepad "the circle of life" with a
smiley face.

Her famous line: "Thank God when they opened my closet, they
found shoes, not skeletons."

The film has opened in the United States and Europe and is
scheduled for screening in Australia and New Zealand next week.
It won a cinematography award at the Sundance Film Festival in
the United States.

Eighteen years after Marcos was overthrown and his family fled
to Hawaii following a 1986 military-backed "people power" revolt
that ended his 20-year rule, Filipinos are divided over his
legacy.

Mrs. Marcos and her three children, including a congresswoman
and a governor, are still influential in Ferdinand Marcos'
northern home province, where his preserved body lies in a glass
coffin. He died in Hawaii in 1989 without admitting any
wrongdoing.

Diaz, 41, said she's still fascinated by Mrs. Marcos, and
denied misleading her into believing she was only doing a school
project.

"She lives her life on stage," she said. "She's part of
history. ... At the end of the day, no one misleads Mrs. Marcos."