Barong Tagalog

A silent film by Jet Leyco.

Four interconnected stories during the height of the Martial Law crackdown against rebels. The palpable aura of fear leaves Filipinos in a state of paralysis, unable or unwilling to move until the dark cloud of history passes over.

On a commuter's trip from Manila's business district to the suburbs, the director finds a myriad of possibilities, ranging from miniature ironic situations to a love story that is finally finding its unexpected closing.

At first, there was Tagalog, Gym Lumbera’s short and, to his mind, unfinished narrative about the infidelity that comes between a husband and wife in their twilight years, shot on film and reflecting his own real-life infidelity.. And then there was a storm, a real storm and not a metaphorical one, that flooded his house and submerged, and subsequently damaged, the only copy of Tagalog. This damaged version, entitled English, became the missing piece that completed the film. The new work is named after Taglish, the bastard hybrid, some say corruption, of Tagalog and English, and has become a meditation on love and language and the ways in which we betray and destroy them.

Catnip follows the story of two friends with coffee and cream personalities: Liv (as in live) and Cieca (means blind). Liv lives with her two apathetic siblings...

The film opens with images of a sorrowful young woman. The film concludes with images of a desperate young man fleeing into a jungle. In between, images that comprise a wealth of information, but there is still no clarity. Only the despair of the disappearance.