Kung Saan Man Tayo (Wherever We May Be) Film Screening and Panel Discussion
Kung Saan Man Tayo (Wherever We May Be) Virtual Film Screening and Panel Discussion
Virtual Film Screening ~ Friday, February 4 – Wednesday, February 9, 2022
The Filipino émigré’s identity is a dynamic one, constantly changing and adapting to one’s adopted community, while at the same time attempting to compromise with one’s responsibilities with their family and with their Filipino culture. This documentary explores the stories of some of these 21st century Filipino émigré who used to be state scholars but have since followed other opportunities abroad. As these friends send a video camera to each other by courier and share their stories, they open up about adulthood and moving away, and teasing out larger themes such as the Philippine’s labor export economy, nationalism, and internationalism, as they search for themselves and their place in the world wherever they may be. Directed by Adrian Alarilla, Jed Yabut, Joseph Unsay, Kenneth Cardenas, Pat R., Pauline M. and Zoé Ciela Guenne.
Panel Discussion ~ Wednesday, February 9, 2022, 2:00pm HST – Register here to join.
On the final day of our virtual screening, we will be holding a panel discussion with filmmakers Adrian Alarilla (PhD candidate, History, UHM) and Kenneth Cardenas (PhD candidate, Geography, York University) at 2:00pm HST, Wednesday, February 9, 2022. Moderated by Maria Natividad I. Karaan (PhD Candidate, English, UHM).
About the Speakers
Adrian Alarilla is a writer, filmmaker, and a PhD Candidate in History at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa studying Filipino migration focusing on kinship networks and genealogies of movement in both U.S. empire and Filipino nation. Born and raised in the Philippines, he is currently based in Seattle. He also helps organize the Southeast Asia x Seattle Film Festival and the annual Pagdiriwang Philippine Festival at Seattle Center. His films parallel his research interests, as he uses the personal documentary genre to reflect on and process the contemporary experience of Filipino migration. His works have been shown all over the US, Canada, Mexico, Cambodia, and the Philippines. “Kung Saan Man Tayo” is his first full-length documentary film project.
Kenneth Cardenas is a PhD Candidate in Geography at York University in Toronto, studying the big business of building big cities in the global South. You can find more about his work here.
About the Moderator
Maria Natividad I. Karaan is pursuing her PhD in English with a focus on Pacific and Southeast Asian Literature at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa. Her current research trajectory revolves around tropography and geopoetics through literary encounters among Southeast Asian and Pacific island spaces by exploring texts that challenge designations of the folk, the modern, and the contemporary. Specifically, she is interested in the ways that time, space, place, and memory interplay under a transcorporeal frame that redefines the boundaries, both physical and abstract, set by imperial logic. In doing so, she aims to challenge the neocolonial and neoliberal structures under which the island—and the archipelago—had been and continue to be imagined, represented, and controlled by looking into radical—in the rooted and revolutionary senses—epistemologies enacted by both human and non-human bodies.
About the Kung Saan Man Tayo Project Reconnect 2021 Directors (anti-clockwise fr top-right):
- Pat R.: has always been interested in environmental justice, She moved to Australia in 2012 and is currently pursuing a law degree in Melbourne.
- Pauline M.: is a Bangkok-based entrepreneur, full-time mom of twin girls and part-time secretary to her filmmaker husband.
- Zoé Ciela Guenne: moved to Paris in 2012; she is a photographer, event organiser, English instructor, and now mother to two beautiful kids.
- Kenneth Cardenas: is a PhD Candidate in Geography at York University in Toronto, studying the big business of building big cities in the global South.
- Joseph Unsay: recently received his PhD in Biosciences, studying at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg as well as in Tübingen.
- Jed Yabut: is an architect who worked in Singapore, and is now a home design entrepreneur back home in the Philippines.
- Adrian Alarilla: is a writer, filmmaker, and PhD Candidate in History at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
This screening and panel discussion is co-sponsored by the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa Center for Southeast Asian Studies and Department of History.