#filipino-cultural-heritage

#filipino-cultural-heritage

Macho Dancer was once deemed so controversial that its director had to smuggle it out of the country so it could see the light of day. Set within Manila's infamous red-light district, the film was seen as too risqué and possibly even dangerous due to its honest look at homosexuality, sex work, and drag queens, while also shining a light on government corruption.

The project avoids iconic gestures and prioritizes a clear integration into the environment through horizontal volumes, controlled proportions, and a land occupation that preserves the landscape's readability.

The Bandera Cimarrona, a flag conceived at the first edition of the International Summit of Afro-descendants in Puerto Rico in 2022, stands as a symbol of the resistance, the pursuit of freedom, and the strength of Afro-descendants on the island and throughout the Americas.

Lunar New Year, also known as Chinese Lunar New Year and Spring Festival, is one of the world's biggest holidays. The 15-day celebration is not only observed in China, Singapore, Malaysia, and other Asian countries but by 2 billion people worldwide. That said, there are other Asian countries with their own, distinct Lunar New Year traditions, and like China's, they've been around for thousands of years.

The Philippines has a habit of luring travellers with turquoise waters, jeepneys painted like fever dreams, and food that makes you wonder why you ever settled for bland lunches at home. But right when you're admiring a perfect island sunset, your phone quietly decides it wants to participate by racking up a roaming bill big enough to ruin the magic.

A sprawling tale of two Singapores, the short documentary Sandcastles draws connections between Singapore, Michigan - a 19th-century ghost town swallowed by sand following widespread deforestation - and the island country of Singapore, where rapid development and land reclamation has, for decades, been enabled by the importation of sand. More poetic exploration than call to action, the work surveys waterways, cycles of development and the transient nature of sand - deceptively sturdy over short timescales but, over decades, quite volatile.