Pelikula Q&A: Ka Oryang An interview with director...

Pelikula Q&A: Ka Oryang
An interview with director Sari Dalena by Jansen Musico

Who is Ka Oryang?

Ka Oryang is a student who witnesses the beginnings of a revolution during the early years of Martial Law. She’s drawn to activism and the brave student protests but at the same time, questions armed struggle and revolution. She’s sort of an accidental activist and a late bloomer. She becomes part of the underground movement and experiences a genuine political awakening. I would best describe her as a gentle warrior, one who heals, writes poems, and records women’s sufferings in a secret journal.

What inspired you to create that character?

She’s is based on stories and experiences by various women who were captured, detained, and tortured during Martial Law. Some of these women were pregnant and gave birth while in detention. At that time I was doing research on their stories, I was also pregnant, so I got very inspired by their courage and resilience.

From that description, the film sounds like it’s very feminist.

The film can be read as feminist as it highlights strong women who rose to the challenge during that period of unrest, but the main focus of the story is about women suffering in silence as mothers and as victims. The film weaves the different stories of women during Martial Law as witnessed by Oryang through her thoughts and letters. Her thoughts have stinging touches of envy, suppressed feelings and misunderstanding showing a range of very human feelings during those oppressive times. The culmination of the film is in the visualizing the strength of women to endure and their capacity for self-sacrifice.

There have been a quite a number of films about Martial Law. What do you think sets your film apart?

The film has two distinct characteristics that could make it a unique retelling of Martial Law. First, it’s framed from a woman’s perspective, thus putting a different lens on the Martial Law experience. Second, I was a Martial Law baby, and from mostly observing my parents’ generation, I have a different understanding and angle of what took place during that period. While previous films on Martial Law were told by filmmakers who were first-hand witnesses of that turbulent period, the film has a poetic edge, an impressionistic take of that period in Philippine history.

You and your sister, Kiri, have collaborated on several projects before. This time she’s your 2nd unit DOP. How is it working with her?

My sister Kiri has always been my true and closest collaborator since my first short film Asong Simbahan. For Ka Oryang, she is in many ways more than just a 2nd unit DOP. She played an important role in the conceptualization and realization of the film in terms of ideas and style. She is also a very good critic in every level of filmmaking process, from the technical aspect down to nurturing good working relationships with the cast and crew with respect to meals and healthy working hours. I love working with her, the collaboration is natural, imagination and ideas flow freely between us. It’s like sisters playing together, transforming and creating things around us, only this time, using the medium of film. Kiri, who, herself, is an activist and an artist, also serves as my inspiration for the project.

Before Ka Oryang I had already co-directed a film, Rigodon with Keith Sicat, who is also my partner in life. We’re known as the “husband and wife” film tandem. In Ka Oryang he acted as the producer, co-writer, cameraman, editor and my best and worst critic. In many ways, he gives the most important and unconditional support in all my filmic endeavors.

You’ve definitely had training and experience as a filmmaker. What new things were you able to discover about yourself or your craft during the making of Ka Oryang?

My previous films were experimental or non-narrative works. Ka Oryang is a dream film project to me, but very challenging to mount because of the historical and political elements involved. My process in translating Ka Oryang into a cinematic language that I was comfortable with was a struggle, because in the beginning I was bound by the documentary aspect of the research and the strict adherence to follow a linear script. The dramatic and realistic depiction of that period was something that has been done before and I was looking for a more subtle, poetic approach in telling the narrative.

Why tell this story now?

Almost 40 years has passed since Martial Law was declared, but nothing much has changed with respect to the human rights violations and the atrocities still prevail to this day. At the same time, the young generation of Filipinos is suffering from a great loss of collective memory over the legacy of Martial Law. The film offers to revisit the past so that we will not forget.

The new generation is suffering from a national amnesia over the legacy of Martial Law where 35,000 individuals were tortured, 3,257 were killed, and 70,000 were jailed under the Marcos dictatorship. Young people should remember history so that great mistakes of the past will not happen again.