DARK MATTER

These 13 contemporary Filipino films show new ways of being and seeing.

- KIANA KIMBERLY FLORES

ASK FILIPINO MOVIE BUFFS ABOUT THE CRITERION CHANNEL AND THEY’LL TELL YOU HOW ESTEEMED THE STREAMING SERVICE IS. So it’s a major coup for the nation’s cinema when some of the most influential contemporary Filipino films are showcased on the platform.

Brooklyn-based programmer Aaron Hunt takes pride in Philippine representation with his current programming of “When The Apocalypse Is Over: New Independent Philippine Cinema,” now streaming on The Criterion Channel.

The program features three feature films and 10 short films made between 2018 to 2023 and is one of the most representative programming of the new wave of Philippine independent cinema to date.

The first pitch for the program happened two years ago when Hunt pitched it to The Criterion Channel’s curatorial director, Ashley Clark. “It was always inspired by how independent filmmakers in the Philippines, especially Zoomers and Millennials, have been manipulating the medium in new ways, often in post-production,” he says. “A lot of the films on that initial list are part of the current program.”

Even before these films made it to The Criterion, Hunt was already booking various iterations of it in theaters and venues like the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where Shireen Seno’s Nervous Translation and Dwein Baltazar’s macabre Oda Sa Wala were also programmed, among others. “The theatrical version of the program has more titles than could fit into the streaming version,” Hunt says. “I especially wish we could have fit Nervous Translation into the Criterion program, for instance. But there was a limit and a budget.”

The program name “When The Apocalypse Is Over: New Independent Philippine Cinema” was born out of Hunt watching a lot of these films during the pandemic. It made sense; some films in the roster tackle themes of apocalypses and dystopia.