Hiyas Baldemor Bagabaldo

A five-year visual ethnography of traditional yet practical orchestration of Semana Santa in a small town where religious woodcarving is the livelihood. An experiential film on neocolonial Philippines’ interpretation of Saints and Gods through many forms of rituals and iconographies, exposing wood as raw material that undergoes production processes before becoming a spiritual object of devotion. - A sculpture believed to have been imported in town during Spanish colonial conquest, locally known as Mahal na Señor Sepulcro, is celebrating its 500 years. Meanwhile, composed of non-actors, Senakulo re-enacts the sufferings and death of Jesus. As the local community yearly unites to commemorate the Passion of Christ, a laborious journey unfolds following local craftsmen in transforming blocks of wood into a larger than life Jesus crucified on a 12-ft cross.

Are you going to push yourself hard to behave according to what the authorities dictate until you become numb as a wilted wood? An experimental film about the pressure of conforming to the society. Accustomed to the standards, people are throwing judgment and prejudice against each other that squeeze them much harder towards the invisible walls. Hypocrisy is celebrated and there’s no room for moving and no space for breathing. Human senses may be the roots of all sins, but these senses are also the foundation of life.

Lockdowns and quarantines did not deter sixteen filmmakers from Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, and the National Capital Region from chronicling their struggles and triumphs during the pandemic time in the way they know best: through film. ECQ: Eksena Cinema Quarantine (COVID-19 Filmmakers' Diaries), a project under the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, National Committee on Cinema (NCCA-NCC), in cooperation with University of St. La Salle Artists' Hub, features sixteen filmmakers namely Adjani Arumpac, Hiyas Baldemor Bagabaldo, Arbi Barbarona, Glenn Barit, Carlo Enciso Catu, Zurich Chan, Arden Rod Condez, Kristian Sendon Cordero, Khavn, Keith Deligero, Kyle Fermindoza, Bagane Fiola, Mark L. Garcia, Julienne Ilagan, Pam Miras, and Guillermo Ocampo.

It’s December 2020, more than nine months of community quarantine in the Philippines. The idea of nothingness is actual and symbolic. With imposed restrictions in the physical world, how can we tell our personal and collective stories of living under the “longest COVID-19 lockdown in the world”? Confined at home, physical and non-physical boundaries are magnified as the filmmaker attempts to articulate existence through floating in time and space.