The Philippine Online Chronicles

Focus on the Global South-Philippines will be presenting EDSAngangdaan: The EDSA Film Festival, a look back at the last 25 years since the EDSA Revolution of 1986.

The two-day festival will feature six short films produced under a grant extended by Focus by both established and up-and-coming filmmakers. It will also feature a Focus-made documentary about the EDSA Revolution.

“Twenty-five years have passed from the time of the [1986 EDSA Revolution]. A new generation of Filipinos has since grown up, and stories about EDSA and People Power have since been retold, rehashed, and even revised over time,” says the group. “Imagining the nation in various cultural forms and narratives has always comprised an integral process for the Filipino people—and this has never been as true as in the case of the EDSA narratives.”

The films will present a broad picture of Philippine society in relation to the three EDSA events. These include “stories of mothers and wives of the rebelling soldiers in EDSA; stories of farmers, politicians and street children; stories of ordinary lives in extraordinary circumstances.”

“The film festival presents all these vital stories with the aim of furthering social and historical education, of turning cinema into a vehicle for socio-political change,” says the group.

EDSAngangdaan: The EDSA Film Festival will open in time for International Human Rights week on December 7 at the UP Film Center. Each film will be followed by a forum featuring selected discussants, filmmakers, educators and representatives of the youth sector. On December 8, screening and in-depth discussions of the films will take place at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani auditorium in Quezon City starting 9:30am.

EDSAngangdaan is part of Focus's EDSA Stories Project, which seeks to rekindle the interest of the new generation in the continuing significance of the EDSA events.

Focus on the Global South-Philippines is the local arm of international non-government organization Focus on the Global South, which is based in Bangkok, Thailand.

For more information about EDSAngangdaan: The EDSA Film Festival please email Jerik Cruz at jerik.cruz@ph.focusweb.org, or call at 4330899 or 433-3387.