Margin
Palugid
PHILIPPINES / 2001 / English, Tagalog / Color / 16mm / 20 min
Director, Script, Narrator: Paolo Villaluna
Photography: Kiri Dalena, Elvin Valerio
Editing: Dexter Cayanes
Sound: Virgilio Catoy
Producers: National Commission on Culture & Arts, Mowelfund Film Institute, Kodak Phil.
Production, Source: Mowelfund Film Institute
66 Rosario Drive, Cubao, Quezon City, 1111 PHILIPPINES
Phone: 63-2-727-1915 Fax: 63-2-727-2033
E-mail: priapus_son@hotmail.com
A striking sequence of shiny white urinals in a public toilet opens the film. The filmmaker’s monologue tells the personal story of his first sexual experience with a stranger at 14, and the loneliness of looking for sex in the margins of society as a gay man. Shot on 16mm, the film uses optical effects and a gliding camera to convey emotional images of rushing clouds in the wind and passing night traffic.
[Director’s Statement] This film has been my medium in answering my own questions on how social conditioning has pushed gay men and their sexual acts in the dark, on the sides, in the margins. How can a simple urinal, with its trademark sink and graffiti become the chosen location of young gay men for sexual acts? Simply because these acts are still generally considered abnormal, cannot be done in their own homes or in motels where the management is only bound to refuse them: so a generation of young gay men find their places in dark public spaces; the urinal, the street alley and others.
Margin represents a generation of young men confessing that yes, we are gay, but we no longer deserve to be in the margins.
Paolo Villaluna
Born in 1977 in Davao City. After quitting college, decided to take up hands-on filmmaking at the Mowelfund Film Institute. Worked with Nick Deocampo on Mother Iganacia (1995). Forming a professional bond with Deocampo, who he considers a mentor, worked as line producer and assistant director on Deocampo’s Pedrong Palad (2000). Production manager for several international co-productions. |