By James Relativo
Progressive media organizations launched Saturday the first international film festival on people’s struggles at the College of Mass Communication Media Center.
Agitprop features independent films and documentaries about various forms of resistance around the world. The festival includes work from directors from different countries, including Germany, Korea and the Philippines.
Korean director Iara Lee’s “Cultures of Resistance,” which capped the first night of the three-day event, showed how people called for change against “the global crisis of imperialism and fascism” through music and the arts.
Lee said she had to go through government red tape in getting information she used in her film, which was shot across five continents. The Korean director added that in some countries, she could not enter without a permit from the Minister of Information.
“A lot of times I had to hide the camera with my clothes, or hide the cameraman in the country I go. This is how crazy it is,” Lee said.
Jack Stevens, a foreigner who watched the film, said Lee’s film showed the level of global agitation.
“I thought it touched on a lot of key stories that are representative of the repressed and oppressed peoples all over the world,” Stevens said.
Agitprop will also screen UP film student Francis Losaria’s “Ang Sandaling Sadya ni Lire at Isa”, and Joel Lamangan’s “Dukot (Desaparacidos),” as well as local films and documentaries from ST eXposure, one of the festival’s organizers.
The film festival will be screening at the College of Mass Communication TV Studio in the CMC Media Center until July 3, and will culminate at the Cine Adarna of the UP Film Institute on Monday, July 4.
