Active Vista Cinema with a Conscience

CEBU, Philippines - Dakila (Philippine Collective for Modern Heroism) takes the magic and power of cinema beyond the screen as the Active Vista Advocacy Film Festival 2010 carries the theme of human rights in film to 17 cities nationwide—Iloilo, Batangas, Cebu, Pampanga, Puerto Princesa, Bacolod, Legaspi, Naga, Cagayan de Oro, Laguna, Davao, Iligan, Dumaguete, Baguio, General Santos, Zamboanga, and Metro Manila.

These films, by changing the way we view the world, can give us the power to invoke “real change in the world.”

Lino Brocka’s “Orapronobis”, banned by the censors in former President Cory Aquino’s time, was one of the film features when the tour made its first stop in Cebu recently. Active Vista held its screenings at the University of San Carlos last July 22-23, University of the Philippines-Cebu last July 26, and the University of Southern Philippines last July 27.  

Though the movie is 20 years old already, it has never lost its power.

According to poet/TV personality/Radioactive Sago Project frontman Lourd Ernest de Veyra, “Perhaps, the enduring message of Orapronobis is that in spite of supposed vicissitudes of history, some things never change, and that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”

“Vigilance, too, comes in a variety of guises. And cinema is one of them, because no film is totally neutral. Even the most damningly escapist love story or the dumbest comedy makes a statement simply by its choice of subject, by what it omits instead of what it says,” he stressed.

De Veyra pointed out that Brocka’s films did not bring down the Marcos dictatorship. But it was enough that—even through the simple story of a security guard, a lovestruck fan, a printing press laborer, a slum-dwelling lass, a displaced probinsiyano, and a host of other characters driven to desperation—Brocka constantly held a mirror to the ugly side of Philippine society for the whole world to see.

Cinema, he said, “has the power to move, to soothe, to intimidate, to cajole, to coerce, to seduce, to bludgeon, to disturb, to arouse.” But not as an escapist piece of technology, but as a tool to explore certain social truths, he was also quick to point out.

“Active Vista, as the name implies, calls for a more dynamic way of watching, which is to say, ‘seeing’. This is a film festival on advocacies, not the middling concerns of style or genre.”

From features to shorts to documentaries, Active Vista features a mixture of both classics and the most recent award-winners of the digital generation, all of which address a kaleidoscope of social issues, from human rights, to the environment, to history, to children’s rights and gender matters, among many others.

Active Vista Filmfest has the support of the Commission on Human Rights Philippines, the Australian Government Aid Program, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the United Nations Development Program. For its screening schedules in other parts of the country, visit www.activevista.com.