The South East Asian Migrant Inspired (SEAMi) and Association of South East Asia Art, Cultural Education and Innovation Research in Taiwan recently invited award-winning Filipino filmmaker and UNESCO Laureate artist Richard Soriano Legaspi to screen his films in Taoyuan City, Northern Taiwan as part of a series of weeklong cultural exchange events in different venues.
Legaspi, the first Filipino artist to be featured in the event, accepted the invitation to share his films including Pipo, which stars Lou Veloso, Chanel “Boom” Latorre, and Maliksi Morales.
Pipo tells the story of a young boy who dreams to have his family picture taken. It is the second installment from Legaspi’s Collective Memoirs short film trilogy. The film was made through a production grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts with support funding from Università delle Idee (UNIDEE) in Italy.
Pipo was shown at the Taoyuan Arts Cinema, a multi- functional community cultural hub that offers art exhibitions and cultural activities for local and foreign artists, on June 3. According to SEAMi art manager Winona Wang, the Taiwanese and migrant audiences loved Pipo as part of the panorama screening last year so the group decided to invite it for a second time for its relatively inspiring theme about family. It is part of a retrospective of Monsoon Asia x SeeMe Mobile Film Festival 2016.
Legaspi’s full-length documentary Ang Walang Kapagurang Paglalakbay ng Pulang Maleta (The Untiring Journey of the Red Suitcase), co-produced by GMA News TV – CineTotoo and UNIDEE with Red Room Media Productions, was also shown at the SEAMi library in Taoyuan on June 4. Among the audience were local labor rights lawyers, activists, cultural activators, filmmakers and university professors. The director warmly shared his experiences and journey in shooting the film in Biella, Italy.
The Taoyuan city government also invited Legaspi to be one of the speakers at the film colloquium “Wind from the South Film Festival” at the MaTsu New Village, Zhongli District on June 5. Other filmmakers invited were Kek Huart Lau of Malaysia and Susan Chen of Taiwan. The forum sought to examine the social narratives of Asia. Chen Yijun and SEAmi founder ZhouXi Lin were the moderators.
Since Legaspi was continuously documenting different migration stories since 2013, he also visited a shelter of Filipino migrant workers in the Northern Taiwan city to share Pipo and another short film, Pamatid-Gutom (Hunger Pangs), starring Mercedes Cabral and co-produced by Focus on the Global South with Red Room, in an afternoon screening and film talk.
After its Taiwan screenings, Pipo will be in Europe to compete at the International Short Film Festival “IndieCrete” in the famous and historic movie theatre “Paradiso” in Archanes, Greece from Aug.18 to 21 and at the Venice Film Week, La Casa del Cinema Venice, Italy on Aug. 29.