Ang pagiging babae: A short feature film on women in society framed through a mother-daughter dyad

• Main Authors: Castro, Fern Roshan D., Gueco, Shenyl Grazel S., Rey, Nicole Venice V.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2018
• Subjects: Mothers and daughters in motion pictures; Short films > Philippines; Short films > Production and direction > Philippines
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/8445
• Institution: De La Salle University

It's 2017. The president has proclaimed martial law in Mindanao. Rape jokes and misogynist remarks are thrown. Those who speak up become enemies, and women are still harassed in the streets. Women are still expected to fulfill their conventional roles-- wives, mothers, caretakers. It's a tumultuous society but it's also witnessing progress. Women are standing up for themselves even at the expense of their own security and lives. They're questioning traditions and being critical as ever. Ang pagiging babae (To be a woman) centers around Karen, 20s, an indigenous peoples and women's rights advocate, who is in the middle of all of these. Karen is an outspoken woman who questions the role of women especially of mothers while she herself has an emotionally distant relationship with her own mother, Jocelyn, 50s, whose past has clearly shaped her present. Karen and Jocelyn are not the closest, and almost always their words are said with nonchalance and actions are done on routine. They only know each other on a surface level but Karen, being critical to her society, also decides to look at herself and examines her relationship with her own mother. Ang pagiging babae (To be a woman) aims to show the complexity of being a woman particularly of being a mother and a daughter in a tumultuous society. This also shows the individuality of mothers and daughters as they reflect on their own selves and on their relationship. It also gives awareness to the struggles of our indigenous brothers and sisters and how intense militarization has affected them.