Confronting Silence: Family Reunification and Mental Health in the Filipino Diaspora in Inay

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Confronting Silence: Family Reunification and Mental Health in the Filipino Diaspora in Inay

Thea and cinematographer Jeremiah Reyes—a Filipino husband-and-wife team—turn the camera on themselves in Inay (Tagalog for “Mama”) to explore the cultural and psychological impacts on children whose mothers left the Philippines out of economic necessity. Thea begins a thoughtful inquiry into the experiences of family separation by interviewing her husband, Jeremiah, and her best friend, Shirley. Through her explorations, Inay intertwines personal narratives with historical context to shed light on the impact of migration policies created by the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP). As a viewer, I stumbled with Thea as she navigates the pain and trauma her partner and friend have experienced through migration and mental illness and challenges the notion of normalcy within Filipino immigrant experiences. 

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Finding the Surreal in Everyday Life: A Review of Modes 2 at VIFF

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Finding the Surreal in Everyday Life: A Review of Modes 2 at VIFF

“I don’t like realism.” This may be the sentiment explicitly expressed by the main character of Leonardo Martinelli’s Pássaro Memória, but it is also the common thread upon which the films of the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF)’s Modes 2 construct their narratives and visual styles. Adept at taking images or situations common to everyday life and lingering on them in a way that crosses over into the unfamiliar and strange, these films allow us an intimacy rarely explored in routine living that, here, borders on the surreal.

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The (sur)Real Life of Hannah Maynard: Be Still at the 2021 VIFF

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The (sur)Real Life of Hannah Maynard: Be Still at the 2021 VIFF

When you think of Surrealism, what do you picture? Dali’s melting clocks? A pipe that claims it isn’t a pipe? Maybe even a Neo-Dadaist-turned-Millennial-Meme video proclaiming “I’m still a piece of garbage,” as if it were a local television jingle. What you probably aren’t imagining is a middle-aged woman dressed in 19th-century mourning attire. In fact, it’s likely that you’ve never even heard of the acclaimed Canadian photographer Hannah Maynard.

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VIFF REVIEWS: MEMORIA & TAMING THE GARDEN

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VIFF REVIEWS: MEMORIA & TAMING THE GARDEN

Another year of VIFF coming and going meant I could return to in-theatre screenings for the first time since the pandemic began. Naturally, my re-introduction was a little bit awkward. Despite this initial trepidation, I wanted to highlight two films that have stayed with me since my initial viewing. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that both of these films explore a sense of unbelonging and unravel some truths about our deep-rooted and chaotic connections to each other and the spaces we inhabit.

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VIFF Immersed: Biidaaban: First Light

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VIFF Immersed: Biidaaban: First Light

“A journey through decolonization, and into Indigenous Futurism, where the land’s future is a cyclic return to its past […] The experience was eight minutes long, and yet its imagining of a different future and the poignancy of the message had an effect that many could not have if they took hours.”

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