Date: Friday 13 December 2024
Time: 19:00 - 21:00 with snacks & filipino rice wine
Location: Varia (Gouwstraat 3, Rotterdam)

Our final Game and Watch series will conclude in a movie night, where we will be happy to host you for a screening of "Walang Rape sa Bontok" (Bontok, Rapeless) from Habi Collective.

"Two women, both victims of sexual abuse, yearn and search for a utopia where women can live without being sexually violated. By chance, they encounter a study by renowned anthropologist June Prill-Brett, which mentions that the Bontok of the Philippine Cordilleras have lived for eras without a term, nor concept, nor incidence, of rape. At last, a utopia, where the most heinous of gender crimes is unheard of. Or is it"?

Among the many reasons for embarking on the creation of this documentary film, two things stand out. One: as victims/survivors of sexual abuse and/or rape, we seek understanding of this age-old problem on gender-based violence using the cultural lens (of rape culture and indigenous culture) as a tool for dialectical inquiry. Two: as grassroots filmmakers, we also seek to contribute to the body of work on the ethical representation of indigenous people in film, where they have been depicted unfairly and incorrectly in tokenistic stories from the first hundred years of Philippine Cinema. Synopsis and Filmmaker's Note both from Daangdokyu.ph

Year: 2014
Runtime: 120 mins

Balay Habi / The Habi Collective are composed of Lester "Ngawit" Valle and Carla "Khayapon" Pulido Ocampo, both filmmakers and cultural workers known for their projects centering on the lifeways and lore of the Northern Philippine grassroots. They also have organised groups like Pelicula Union, a group of filmmakers, film viewers, and academics committed to realizing grounded, ethical, and socially-relevant filmmaking in the Philippine North.

This series falls under Varia's Counter Coloniality research thread and is supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL.