myDylarama

Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2026

carrie — 2026-02-01T10:22:18Z

Europe's largest (and the world's second largest) film festival back, nestled in the heart of France's wild, volcanic region of the Massif Central. Its international competition, made up of 12 programmes of shorts, is one of the richest platforms for storytelling from around the world. The accessibility and relatively low cost of short filmmaking allow for breadth of voices that can't be matched by feature film festivals. The more experimental films are given a competition all to themselves - the Lab. On top of which are special programmes, thematic screenings, exhibitions... so much to fill the hefty catalogue the 200,000 festival attendees are lugging and anottating day in day out.

This year's geographical focus is South East Asia. Festival regular, Filipino director Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan is back. Festival moderator and writer Elise Loiseau has written this in-depth piece on his work - and this edition's masterclass will be with Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung (The Taste of Things, The Smell of the Green Papaya).

There is so much going on, there's hardy any point trying to capture the highlights. But a few of the perks that sets Clermont apart include: a fairly exhaustive programme squarely aimed at children (from 4!), filmmaking and film craft workshops (free!), side exhibitions (all around the town!), and a massive film market (pitch your feature!). Every year, the festival team arranges for the Palestinian film delegation to come and present the consistently and astoundingly strong films made and produced by Palestinian filmmakers in the preceding 12 months.

We'll be back with a few choice Q&As... Watch this space.

Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan : What it means to listen

Elise Loiseau — 2026-02-01T10:07:01Z

In the space of four years, the Filipino director has made his mark with his intimate and luminous short films. Discovered in France in 2021 at the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, he has consolidated his reputation on the global short film circuit with the release of Vox Humana, and is still at the forefront of the cinematic representation of the indigenous peoples of the northern Philippine archipelago, where he was born.

Platforming stories that need to be told

In four films, Umbilical Cord to Heaven (2021), Hilum (2021), The Headhunter's Daughter (2022) and Vox Humana (2024), Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan has defined his recognisable style through recurring formal elements: the use of natural light, square frames, and the hazy quality of his images. The combination of this formal beauty and the evocation of themes that are both intimate and political has won over the most prestigious festivals: in Clermont-Ferrand, Hilum won the student prize and a special mention in 2021, and Vox Humana won the student prize in 2025. As for The Headhunter's Daughter, it won the coveted Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022, amongst other awards. Prior to that, his first short film, Umbilical Cord to Heaven, won the CineYouth Best Experimental Film Award at the 55th Chicago International Film Festival in 2019.

This recognition from the industry and the public celebrates a unique voice that draws inspiration from both personal and historical trauma. His films evoke mourning and the colonial experience, and tell the story of the precarious situation of indigenous peoples, whose identities have been undermined over the centuries by successive colonisations, first Spanish, then American. [1] These films draw their strength from their tranquil pace, their meditative quality, and the resolute message humbly conveyed by their director, who identifies nature, spirituality, and cinema as powerful saving forces capable of restoring his heroines' capacity for self-determination.

His relationship with his indigenous identity is, in part, the subject matter of his films: he became aware of this after spending several years in the West. Eblahan was born in La Trinidad in the Philippines, grew up mainly in the Baguio region, then left the archipelago for four years to study film in Chicago. However, before embarking on a career as a filmmaker, it was music that first appealed to him: coming from a family of musicians, he learned to play the guitar and compose long before he became interested in cinema. The turning point came with Rob Marshall's film Nine, when, captivated by its soundtrack, Don researched the film and its story, discovering Fellini's Eight and a Half (which inspired Nine), then Italian and French cinema, and so on. This led him to leave the archipelago to study film at DePaul University in Chicago. Years away from the archipelago gave rise to a desire to recount, through the prism of autofiction, his experience as an Igorot trying to find his place in a Westernised world:

Being in the West has held up a mirror towards myself, perhaps instigating a reason to be more inquisitive about my own identity, the history of the land/or islands I grew up in, and the interpersonal and spiritual voices that call for their stories to be told.

As told to Jason Tan Liwag for Rappler.

Conveying the complexity of indigenous identities

This is one of the main challenges facing cinema, which also exists in response to a form of media mistreatment of indigenous identities and has set itself the task of challenging this representation:

The intersection between Indigenous identities and TV hasn't always been the friendliest (even Philippine TV) — from caricatured portrayals to insensitive remarks about our culture.

As told to Jason Tan Liwag for Rappler.

Given the precedent set by this, Don writes his main characters – all female for now – imbued with complexity, such as Lynn, the heroine of The Headhunter's Daughter, who crosses mountains to reach the city to perform in a television competition, hoping to be heard by her father. The staging hints at the stigmatisation suffered by indigenous people, through the condescending questions asked by the competition host. Lynn's response, that her motivation is not money, contradicts this stereotype:

The fact that Lynn is questioned so directly on screen draws attention to our media's tendency to sensationalize otherness, tragedy, sentimentality, and misery in the lives of Indigenous Filipinos. I wanted to give my protagonist a different response and perspective to this cyclical trend. Lynn's choice to approach her audition in that way reveals a hidden resilience that, I believe, was necessary in that situation.

As told to Élise Loiseau.

Eblahan's cinema does not merely renew the representation of indigenous communities in the northern Philippine archipelago, it places it within a broader narrative, that of the struggle against the erasure of cultural identities and the marginalization of indigenous communities. The Headhunter's Daughter does not open with images but with a song, inspired by a traditional song of African slaves, immediately placing the film in a universe that transcends the condition of the indigenous Filipino characters: "I wanted this historical context to be introduced at the beginning of the film, even before the first images appeared. Establishing this context before the film even appears on screen sets the stage, encouraging the audience to listen more attentively and perhaps situate themselves in a historical and sociological space before the story even begins.

I wanted this historical context to be introduced from the very beginning, even before any visuals are seen. To linger around this context before the film emerges from the black screen sets a precedent that urges participation with the audience to listen closer and perhaps situate themselves in a historical and sociological headspace before we introduce any direct narrative

From Rappler.

A way of bringing his roots to the global cinema stage, while placing them in a broader context, that of the domination and dehumanisation of entire population groups. His cinema consists not only of bringing these mechanisms of domination to life on screen, but also of exploiting the cinematic codes associated with different genres in order to subvert the traditional representation of indigenous peoples, which is considered either stereotypical or condescending:

Films about indigenous peoples, made by indigenous people, can be thrillers, westerns, science fiction films (...) We too have complex stories that we have to deal with while living in the modern world. We are not just “savages” or victims of colonisation. We exist, and we too can look cool in trench coats.

From Techbuzznews.

Hilum and Vox Humana: listening as an act of reparation

A recurring theme in her filmography is that listening to others is presented as a powerful voice of emancipation and healing, whether it be in relation to grief, the quest for recognition, or the erasure of cultures that haunt her heroines. This was already central to her second film, Hilum, whose meaning is contained in the polysemy of its title:

Hilum is a Filipino word that translates differently in two dialects. In Cebuano it means “to render silence”, while in Tagalog it means “to heal an open wound”. The connection between the two meanings is the essential element of the film.' Hilum is a Filipino word that translates differently in two dialects. In Cebuano it means “to render silence”, in Tagalog it means “to heal an open wound”. The connection of both meanings is the important binding force of the film.

Don Rafael Josephus Eblahan

It is indeed silence and the attentive listening of a shaman that seem to heal the strange illness afflicting the heroine of the short film, who regains her ability to shed tears after recounting the accident that cost her father his life. This ritual combining listening and narration takes place on a beach, under a blinding sun, in an atmosphere reminiscent of a mystical EMDR session (the shaman asks the heroine to accompany the story of the accident with eye movements from right to left).

In Vox Humana, Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan continues his reflection on listening, making attention to others an act of reparation. The film, shot with a crew of just fifteen people over three days in the Cordillera mountains, takes up and develops this same idea, this time embodying it in the form of a sound engineer tasked with deciphering the language of a man discovered in the wild, who is suspected of being responsible for an earthquake. The film borrows from the codes of detective and science fiction films, while also exploring listening to others and nature as possible ways of resolving trauma. This time, it highlights the mechanism of exclusion suffered by communities perceived as ‘incomprehensible' or even ‘non-human':

We wanted to make a film about the language of listening: listening to the earth, to individuals, and even to “non-human” creatures. Through the question of sound, I wanted to explore this concept of “non-human”, particularly how this notion can be used as a weapon against marginalised populations whose land and rights are often confiscated.

From Rappler

The director is currently working on his next film, Hum, his first feature film currently in development. This project will be loosely based on the myth of the indigenous Ifugaos tribe entitled the myth of Ovug (or ‘myth of the divided child') and will feature a rodeo rider searching for her twin who disappeared in the forest after an earthquake. It promises to be an extension of his short films: a poetic fiction, where the intimate and the political come together in a meditation on collective memory, trauma and the survival of indigenous Filipino identities, which should allow Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan to continue weaving stories of these heroines into the collective narrative of the Philippines and world cinema.

[1] The Philippine archipelago resisted Spanish occupation for more than three centuries, but eventually succumbed to the influence of American occupation. The Spanish ceded the Philippines to the Americans for $20 million in 1898

2025 British docs to look out for in 2026

Abla Kandalaft — 2025-12-18T12:54:56Z

As we near the end of 2025, we wanted to flag a couple of placing working class communities at their heart, which will be screening in the new year.

First up is Iron Ladies, a rousing, inspiring doc championing the women at the heart of the miners' strikes that will resonate today.

Given where we are today, it's unsurprising that many people think back to the miners' strike of 1985 with a sense of resignation and defeat. Daniel Draper's doc Iron Ladies attempts (quite successfully) to shift that narrative. The film champions the spirit and tenacity of the women that sustained the fight for a whole year. "It were a win for women", one of the featured "Ladies" shares with Daniel. The strikes were triggered by Margaret Thatcher's government's pit closure plans, which were inevitably going to lead to mass unemployment and poverty, the effects of which are still being felt today.

Through (incredibly entertaining) talking heads, archive footage, and rousing music, Iron Ladies presents us with a global and in-depth appraisal of the strikes and their impact. Daniel speaks to women from the North to the South of the country - Durham, Yorkshire, South Wales, Kent... The film highlights the nationwide character of the strikes and their inspiring community spirit. It also delves into the sacrifices and hardship that the miners and their families had to endure. Crucially, the doc really drives home the remarkable fight that these women put up, in spite of the usual sexism they faced (“my mum told me I wasn't fit to be a wife or a mother”) and the wider pain and misery caused by the pit closures and police brutality. The doc doesn't shy away from revisiting the violence of episodes like the Battle of Oregraves and is scathing about media complicity and framing - "Police didn't clash with the miners. They attacked the miners". I'm mildly inclined to agree with The Indiependent's reviewer in that the film doesn't harness the opportunity to bring up the ways in which the events resonate in today's context. But... I would argue that audiences will invariably be thinking of the current UK political landscape: from the doctors' strikes to police repression and brutality, or the most recent starker echo: the first hunger strikes in the UK since 1981.

The second doc also champions working class voices, this time in the film industry. Rather, it unpacks the many ways in which they are actively and intentionally kept out of - at least - the higher echelons of film and TV. Again, through talking heads from industry stakeholders and famously vocal figures such as Maxine Peake and Paul Laverty, as well as concrete data, Scottish filmmaker Mark Forbes offers a fairly exhaustive account of the elitism that plagues this industry. This is a surprisingly rare doc about an issue that is so widely known and accepted. There's a distinct feeling that producers, funders, those with the keys to success all wax lyrical about theoretically platforming underrepresented voices but are not prepared to properly address the very material barriers that exist. Mark's film underlines the way exclusion really starts from birth. Access to the old boys' type networks is absolutely key - then followed over the years by successive hurdles: access to money, to cities and spaces where it all happens, ability to sustain high living costs and low pay or no pay... Let's hope industry "people" watch it and genuinely address the points it raises.

Here's an interview with Mark Forbes with The Canary:

Arab picks from LFF 2025

Abla Kandalaft, Alma — 2025-10-20T10:59:06Z

Aside from our recently reviewed Palestine 36, the BFI London Film Festival marked the festival run tailend for a number of films from the Arab world. Highlights include Erige Sehiri's Promised Sky, a rare, necessary, and beautifully dramatised account of migrant women from the Ivory Coast living in Tunisia, having made their way there for a variety of reasons (study, refuge...). Surprisingly few films have been made about intra-continental migration, despite this making up the vast majority of international migration patterns.

It doesn't make the women's plight any less harrowing. Erige Sehiri, who has a knack for filming female friendships, bonds and interactions with intimacy and heart (see Under the Fig Trees), tells the stories of Preacher Marie, young mother Naney and student Jolie who moved from their homeland in search of a better life. They end up looking after young Kenza, a 4 year-old girl washed ashore after losing her family in a perilous sea journey - a character heartbreakingly based on a real girl Erige met who did perish at sea with her mother. Sehiri's nuanced, moving depiction of motherhood - Naney missing her daughter and unable to be with her, Marie taking Kenza under her wing yet aware that the girl isn't hers - serves as a prism through which the hardship of the women's displacement is told. Yet, there are great moments of humour and joy showing the resilience of these women.

An utterly original, surreal and quite gripping pick is Khartoum, the result of five directors' efforts to piece together a heartfelt tribute to the Sudanese capital told throught the lives of five of its inhabitants. What started out as a UK backed small-scale project to create 5 short poems about Khartoum was entirely upended when the directors - one Brit and four Sudanese + the Khartoum residents they were filming were forced to flee following the outbreak of the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces in 2023. They used what production money they had left to flee to Kenya and, once there, all eventually rekindled to put together a different film. In the absence of footage and filming locations, they end up drawing on a variety of other funding bodies and opportunities to use greenscreen and animation to re-create scenes of everyday life in Khartoum. It's done in a similar vein to The Act of Killing and although some of the scenes they "perform" are heartbreaking, the end film is full of humour, joy, and colour. While director Rawya Al Haj is keen to stress the importance of raising political awareness about the conflict in Sudan and counter media misinformation - very much a proxy war as opposed to a civil war - Khartoum is a truly uplifting, rousing love letter to the both the city and its people.

Zain Duraie's Sink is a (criminally) rare film from the Arab world that tackles complex family dynamics and mental health. Duraie handles the subject with so much nuance, maturity and compassion that it came as a surprise to find out this was her first feature. Her first foray into filmmaking was in fact as Annemarie Jacir's assistant and there's something of that same treatment of intergenerational banter, of the intimacy of everyday interactions. The film tells the story of a mum (Clara Khoury, also starring in The Voice of Hind Rajab) dealing with the deterioriation of her son's mental health and the eventual fallout on her personal and professional lives and the rest of the family. Unsurprisingly, Duraie found it near impossible to garner interest on the part of the usual line up of European funders and co-productions given the subject matter. Eventually, other funding partners stepped in and the film saw the light of the day after five years in the making.

7 Activist documentaries available for free

Abla Kandalaft — 2025-10-16T16:33:34Z

The UCLA Film Archive just announced that 7 activist documentaries that are now freely available to access and stream for students, academics, and others. This update was shared through the Radical Film Network, thanks to Pr John T. Caldwell.

He writes: "This online collection is from a recent retrospective of my films that the UCLA Archive featured at the LA Hammer Museum last Fall. Now, all of these experimental documentaries and ethnographic films (made between 1983 and 2020) are available freely for classroom, area studies, or community use at the Film Archive's public Vimeo site."

These films primarily focus on immigration politics, migrant labour, indigenous organizing, and extractive economies in the U.S. and Central America.

The films deal with themese like ICE deportations, indegenous "migrant camps" and labour organising, as well as "reverse immigration” away from the “fortress America" U.S. of the late 1980s (“Freak Street: The Migratory Patterns of Hippies”, 1989); labor organizing by a local SoCal union community that broke the transnational corporate extraction economy of Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto (“Boron Lockout”, 2012); the national economic erasure of indigenous practices and identities (the Managalase Communities of Papua New Guinea in “Kuije Kanan”, 1984); and, an unfortunate precursor to the current political theater and staged media “war” against Venezuelan “drug cartels" in 2025 (i.e., the Reagan-Contra war against the Sandinistas, that exploited the indigenous Afro-Caribbean Miskitu people from Nicaragua depicted in “Personas Desplazadas", 1983)."

The films from the Border Wars collection can be accessed here.

Palestine 36 - Harrowing and all too rare retelling of the pre-Nakba period

Mydylarama team — 2025-09-18T15:54:53Z

Palestinian cinema is distinctly prolific. The more efforts are made to erase Palestinians as a people and Palestine as a slice of West Asian land, the more urgent the storytelling becomes. 2025 has already seen a number of much hyped premieres and releases, but the novelty this year seems to be the rare inclusion of historical dramas, films set around the time of the Nakba or earlier. These have been few and far between on the mainstream festival/distribution circuit. The Time That Remains or The Gate of the Sun come to mind from the last couple of decades...

This year saw the Summer premiere of Palestinian American filmmaker's All That's Left of You, which she has described as a “Palestine origin story.” The film is built around a Jaffa family saga, covering post 48 decades (the Nakba, the war of 1967, the First Intifada) but the focus remains on the dynamics and the fate of one particular family.

Annemarie Jacir (Salt of this Sea, Wajib - a film that just gets better with every viewing) tackles the pre-Nakba peasant revolt of 1936 and the wider colonial context in ambitious and wide-reaching epic Palestine 36. The film begins in (the titular) 36 in Palestine, then under British administration following the end of WW1 and the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Tensions have been escalating for years in the form of strikes, insurrections, and demonstrations, and culminate in an all-out Palestinian revolt against British colonial rule and the growing number of Zionist settlers.

In order to weave together quite dense geopolitical context and fictional plot, Jacir has quite deftly created a patchwork of characters - the young Yousef who hails from a small village, Afra and her family of farmers, Amir, an influential newspaper editor, and his journalist wife Khuloud, Father Boulos, the village priest, the British dignitaries - whose personal intertwined stories play out against the consequences of the factual history.

So little exists in mainstream cinema about this particular period - the Arab peasant revolt, the plan to partition Mandatory Palestine, which helps expose it (and the later the creation of the State of Israel) as "simply" another tendril of Britain's colonialist enterprises - that Jacir deserves credit for tackling it. Helpfully, the alludes to the earlier Sykes-Picot agreement, which essentially implemented the wider partition of the region and helps shed light on the geopolitics at play today, really driving home the fact that the ongoing wars, occupations, coups, and violence have their roots in political decisions that are only a century old.

Unsurprisingly, and despite weaving so many strands together (including archival footage), Annemarie Jacir does so seamlessly, and although the various protagonists are fairly archetypal, she creates real emotional engagement with their respective destinies, and rouses anger at the cruelty and injustice of the decades that would follow, and that would eventually lead us to what we are witnessing today.

The Fifth Annual Jerusalem Arab Film Festival (JAFF)

Mydylarama team — 2025-07-23T14:27:52Z

The Jerusalem Arab Film Festival has just celebrated its fifth edition. Set up in 2020, the festival is a rare chance to celebrate Arab storytelling in increasingly restricted cultural spaces under occupation and helps foster a sense of connection for Palestinians living in the city who are for the most part physically cut off from the rest of historic Palestine and the wider Arab world. The week-long JAFF presented 31 films, including fiction features, docs, and shorts, as well as panels and talks at Al Hakawati Theater in East Jerusalem.

Founder and director Nevin Shaheen is keen to stress the importance of this space for the city's cultural life and Palestinian identity: “We dedicate a significant part of the festival's program to social and political cinema, with a spotlight on the suffering of the people of Gaza, and we present films that reflect the stories of prisoners and the weight of memory under occupation. Cinema here becomes a space of emotional, political, and cultural resistance.” (Festival catalogue)

Internationally, Palestinian cinema stands out: despite the impossible situation on the ground, the incredible precariouness which defines all aspects of the lives of the quasi-totality of Palestinians, filmmaking is surprisingly prolific. Bethlehem-based Film Lab Palestine presents a full programme of new shorts every year, most notably showcased at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, and without fail, the cinematography is exquisite, the stories are strong and rousing, the performances nuanced and captivating. Yet, Jerusalem has so far remained on the margins of this resilient sector. Festival consultant and Tripoli Film Festival founder Elias Khlat describes Jerusalem as "largely absent from the cinematic panorama”. “Had it not been for this film festival, initiated by Nevin Shaheen, it would have been entirely missing from the map.”

(EU Partners)

The festival opened on 9 July with Passing Dreams by prominent Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi (Feature Jury Prize), a family journey through Palestine on the hunt for a homing pigeon. Other entries include We Are Inside, by Farah Kassem (Shireen Abu Akleh Jury Prize); Diaries from Lebanon, by Myriam al-Hajj; The Vanishing, by Karim Moussaoui; Aicha, by Mahdi M. Al Barsaoui (Best Feature Film); The Brink of Dreams, by Ayman al-Amir (Best Doc); The Village Next to Paradise, by Mo Harawe; Madaniya, by Mohamed Subahi (Special Mention), A Passing Day, by Rasha Shahin (Best Short).

The festival was followed by a 2-day programme rescreening festival entries in Bethlehem in collaboration with Wonder Cabinet.

Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan : ce que signifie écouter

Elise Loiseau — 2025-06-02T18:47:43Z

En l'espace de quatre ans, le réalisateur philippin a imposé son style grâce à ses courts métrages intimes et lumineux. Révélé en France en 2021 par le Festival du court métrage de Clermont-Ferrand, il consolide sa réputation sur le circuit mondial du court métrage avec la sortie, cette année, de Vox Humana, et continue de renouveler la représentation cinématographique des peuples autochtones du nord de l'archipel philippin, dont il est issu.

Faire entendre les histoires qui demandent à être racontées

En quatre films, Umbilical Cord to Heaven (2021), Hilum (2021), The Headhunter's Daughter (2022) et Vox Humana (2024), Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan a su imposer un style reconnaissable par ses qualités formelles récurrentes : l'utilisation de la lumière naturelle, le recours au cadre carré ou encore la qualité brumeuse de ses images. L'alliance entre cette beauté formelle et l'évocation de thèmes à la fois intimes et politiques a séduit les festivals les plus prestigieux : à Clermont-Ferrand, Hilum y a remporté le prix étudiant ainsi qu'une mention spéciale en 2021, et Vox Humana le prix étudiant en 2025. Quant à The Headhunter's Daughter, il a entre autres remporté le très convoité Grand prix du jury du Festival de Sundance en 2022. Avant cela, son premier court, Umbilical Cord to Heaven, avait remporté le prix du meilleur film expérimental de CineYouth au 55ᵉ Festival international du film de Chicago en 2019.
Cette reconnaissance de l'industrie et du public vient saluer une voix singulière, qui puise son inspiration dans les traumatismes aussi bien personnels qu'historiques. Son cinéma évoque le deuil, l'expérience coloniale, et raconte la ligne de crête sur laquelle évoluent les autochtones, dont les identités ont été, au fil des siècles, mises à mal par les colonisations successives, espagnole d'abord, puis américaine [1]. Ces films tirent leur force de leur rythme tranquille, de leur qualité méditative et du propos résolu, humblement déroulé par leur réalisateur qui désigne la nature, la spiritualité et le cinéma comme de puissantes forces salvatrices capables de rendre à ses héroïnes leur capacité d'autodétermination.

Son rapport à l'identité autochtone constitue, en partie, la matière de son cinéma : il en a pris conscience après avoir passé plusieurs années en Occident. Eblahan est né aux Philippines, à La Trinidad, a grandi principalement dans la région de Baguio, puis a quitté l'archipel quatre ans, le temps d'étudier le cinéma à Chicago. Pourtant, avant d'embrasser une carrière de cinéaste, c'est la musique qui l'a d'abord appelé : issu d'une famille de musiciens, il a appris à jouer de la guitare et à composer bien avant de s'intéresser au cinéma. Le tournant s'opère grâce au film Nine de Rob Marshall, lorsque, happé par sa bande-son, Don a investigué le film et son histoire, et découvert à cette occasion Huit et demi de Fellini (dont Nine est inspiré), puis le cinéma italien, français et ainsi de suite. Ce qui le mènera à quitter l'archipel pour étudier le cinéma à la DePaul University, à Chicago. Des années loin de l'archipel qui feront naître le désir de raconter, à travers le prisme de l'autofiction, son expérience d'Igorot tentant de trouver sa place dans un monde occidentalisé : « Vivre en Occident m'a permis de me regarder dans un miroir, ce qui m'a peut-être incité à m'interroger davantage sur ma propre identité, sur l'histoire de la terre et des îles où j'ai grandi, et les voix interpersonnelles et spirituelles qui demandent que leurs histoires soient racontées [2]. » Une prise de conscience qui donnera naissance à quatre courts métrages, tous réalisés aux Philippines, avec au casting des interprètes issus de la communauté des Igorots dont il raconte les histoires, auxquelles il redonne nuance et complexité.

Redonner aux identités autochtones leur complexité

C'est l'un des enjeux principaux d'un cinéma qui existe aussi en réaction à une forme de maltraitance médiatique des identités autochtones, et qui s'est donné pour mission assumée de renouveler cette représentation : « Les relations entre les identités autochtones et la télévision n'ont pas toujours été des plus amicales (y compris au sein de la télévision philippine) – qu'il s'agisse de représentations caricaturales ou de remarques indélicates sur notre culture. » [3] Face à ce précédent, Don écrit des personnages principaux – pour le moment tous féminins – à qui il redonne toute leur complexité, à l'image de Lynn, l'héroïne de The Headhunter's Daughter, qui traverse les montagnes pour rejoindre la ville afin de présenter sa chanson lors d'un concours télévisé, dans l'espoir d'être entendue par son père. La mise en scène laisse deviner la stigmatisation dont les autochtones sont victimes, à travers les questions condescendantes que l'hôte du concours lui adresse. La réponse de Lynn, qui lui répond que sa motivation n'est pas l'argent, contredit ce stéréotype : « Le fait que Lynn soit interrogée sans détour à l'écran met en lumière la tendance de nos médias à sensationnaliser l'altérité, le tragique, le sentimentalisme et le malheur dans la vie des Philippins autochtones. Je voulais montrer un personnage qui offre une réponse et une perspective différentes face à cette tendance cyclique. Le choix de Lynn d'aborder son audition de cette manière montre une forme de résilience cachée qui, je crois, était nécessaire dans cette situation [4]. »

Le cinéma d'Eblahan ne se contente pas de renouveler la représentation des communautés indigènes du nord de l'archipel philippin, il l'inscrit dans un récit plus large, celui de la lutte contre l'effacement des identités culturelles et de la marginalisation des communautés autochtones. The Headhunter's Daughter ne s'ouvre pas sur des images mais sur un chant, inspiré d'un chant traditionnel d'esclaves africains, inscrivant d'office le film dans un univers qui dépasse la condition des personnages autochtones philippins : « Je voulais que ce contexte historique soit introduit dès le début du film, avant même l'apparition des premières images. Le fait de poser ce contexte avant même que le film n'émerge sur l'écran pose le décor, qui incite le public à écouter avec plus d'attention, et peut-être à se situer dans un espace historique et sociologique avant même que l'histoire ne commence [5]. » Une manière de mettre sur la scène cinématographique mondiale ses racines, tout en les inscrivant dans un contexte plus large, celui de la domination et de la déshumanisation de groupes entiers de population. Son cinéma consiste non seulement à faire exister à l'écran ces mécaniques de domination, tout en exploitant les codes cinématographiques rattachés à différents genres afin de subvertir la représentation traditionnelle des autochtones, jugée soit stéréotypée, soit condescendante : « Les films sur les populations autochtones, réalisés par des autochtones, peuvent aussi bien être des thrillers, des westerns, que des films de science-fiction (…) Nous aussi nous avons des histoires complexes, que nous devons affronter, tout en vivant dans le monde moderne. Nous ne sommes pas seulement des “sauvages” ou des victimes de la colonisation. On existe, et nous aussi on peut avoir l'air cool en trench-coat [6]. »

Hilum et Vox Humana : l'écoute comme acte de réparation

Une proposition récurrente au sein de sa filmographie : l'écoute de l'autre est présentée comme une puissante voix d'émancipation et de guérison, qu'il soit question des deuils, de la quête de reconnaissance ou de l'effacement des cultures qui hantent ses héroïnes. Elle était déjà au cœur de son second film Hilum, dont le sens est contenu dans la polysémie de son titre : « Hilum est un mot philippin qui se traduit différemment dans deux dialectes. En cebuano, il signifie “rendre le silence”, tandis qu'en tagalog, il signifie “guérir une blessure ouverte ”. Le lien entre les deux significations est l'élément essentiel du film. [7] » C'est bien le silence et l'écoute attentive d'un chamane qui semblent guérir l'étrange maladie dont souffre l'héroïne du court métrage, qui recouvre sa capacité à verser des larmes après avoir narré l'accident qui coûta la vie à son père. Ce rituel mêlant écoute et narration prend place sur une plage, sous un soleil aveuglant, dans une atmosphère s'apparentant à la fois à une mystique séance d'EMDR (le chamane demande à l'héroïne d'accompagner le récit de l'accident par des mouvements oculaires de droite à gauche) et à un rêve éveillé.

Dans Vox Humana, Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan poursuit sa réflexion sur l'écoute, en faisant de l'attention portée à l'autre un acte de réparation. Le film, tourné avec une équipe réduite à quinze personnes en trois jours dans les montagnes de la Cordillère, reprend et développe cette même idée, en l'incarnant cette fois sous les traits d'une ingénieure du son chargée de décrypter le langage d'un homme découvert dans la nature, et que l'on soupçonne d'être responsable d'un tremblement de terre. Le film reprend les codes des films policiers et de science-fiction, tout en faisant là aussi de l'écoute de l'autre et de la nature de possibles chemins de résolution des traumas. Il y met cette fois en scène le mécanisme d'exclusion dont sont victimes les communautés perçues comme “incompréhensibles”, voire “non humaines” : « Nous voulions faire un film sur le langage de l'écoute : l'écoute de la terre, des individus, et même des créatures “non humaines”. À travers la question du son, je voulais interroger ce concept de “non-humain”, notamment en quoi cette notion peut être utilisée comme une arme contre les populations marginalisées dont les terres et les droits sont souvent confisqués [8] . » À travers le motif de la prise de son, et la méfiance de certains des personnages (en trench-coat) envers le mystérieux homme au langage inconnu, Eblahan interroge la manière dont certaines voix sont étouffées, voire jamais entendues.

Le réalisateur travaille actuellement à son prochain film, Hum, son premier long métrage actuellement en développement. Ce projet sera librement inspiré du mythe de la tribu indigène Ifugaos intitulé le mythe d'Ovug (ou « mythe de l'enfant divisé ») et mettra cette fois en scène une cavalière de rodéo partie à la recherche de son jumeau disparu dans la forêt après un séisme. Il s'annonce comme un prolongement de ses courts : une fiction poétique, où l'intime et le politique se rejoignent dans une méditation sur la mémoire collective, le traumatisme et la survivance des identités philippines autochtones, qui devrait permettre à Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan de continuer à mêler les histoires de ces héroïnes au récit collectif philippin comme au cinéma mondial.

[1] L'archipel philippin a résisté pendant plus de trois siècles à l'occupation espagnole, et a par la suite cédé à l'influence de l'occupation américaine. Les Espagnols ont cédé les Philippines pour 20 millions de dollars aux Américains en 1898.

[2] “Being in the West has held up a mirror towards myself, perhaps instigating a reason to be more inquisitive about my own identity, the history of the land/or islands I grew up in, and the interpersonal and spiritual voices that call for their stories to be told.” Propos recueillis par Jason Tan Liwag pour Rappler. Interview disponible ici : https://www.rappler.com/entertainment/movies/interview-don-eblahan-director-the-headhunters-daughter/

[3] « The intersection between Indigenous identities and TV hasn't always been the friendliest (even Philippine TV) — from caricatured portrayals to insensitive remarks about our culture. » Propos recueillis par Jason Tan Liwag pour Rappler. Interview disponible ici : https://www.rappler.com/entertainment/movies/interview-don-eblahan-director-the-headhunters-daughter/. »

[4] “The fact that Lynn is questioned so directly on screen draws attention to our media's tendency to sensationalize otherness, tragedy, sentimentality, and misery in the lives of Indigenous Filipinos. I wanted to give my protagonist a different response and perspective to this cyclical trend. Lynn's choice to approach her audition in that way reveals a hidden resilience that, I believe, was necessary in that situation.” Propos recueillis par Élise Loiseau. https://clermont-filmfest.org/the-headhunters-daughter/

[5] “ I wanted this historical context to be introduced from the very beginning, even before any visuals are seen. To linger around this context before the film emerges from the black screen sets a precedent that urges participation with the audience to listen closer and perhaps situate themselves in a historical and sociological headspace before we introduce any direct narrative “ https://www.rappler.com/entertainment/movies/interview-don-eblahan-director-the-headhunters-daughter/

[6] “Indigenous films made by indigenous people can look like a crime thriller, Western, sci-fi film,” he continues. “We have complex stories as well that we're dealing with in the modern world. We're not just savages or victims of colonization—we're here, and we can look cool in a trench coat as well.” Propos recueillis par Christian Cabrera pour Techbuzznews. Interview disponible ici : https://www.techbuzznews.com/sundance-film-festival-2025-vox-humana/

[7] “Hilum is a Filipino word that translates differently in two dialects. In Cebuano it means “to render silence”, in Tagalog it means to “heal an open wound”. The connection of both meanings is the important binding force of the film.” Don Rafael Josephus Eblahan, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/don-eblahan/hilum-a-short-film?lang=zh

[8] “We wanted to make a film about the language of listening : to the earth, to the people, and even non-human creatures. Through sound, I wanted to interrogate the concept of “non-human” particularly in the lens of how such meaning can be weaponized against marginalized people whose lands and rights are usually taken away.” https://www.rappler.com/entertainment/movies/vox-humana-don-eblahan-interview-toronto-international-film-fest-2024/

Clermont-Ferrand London edition - My shorts highlights

Alaa Nouasri — 2025-05-07T12:47:53Z

London-based film researcher and writer Alaa Nouasri shares her thoughts on the recent UK programme from the London "edition" of the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. In its third year, the programme is carefully curated by the Clermont-Ferrand programming team to incorporate highlights and award winners from this year's festival for audiences in London.

On 26 April at the Garden Cinema in London, the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2025 launched its UK programme with varied work, ranging from animation to documentary and fiction. Walking into the screening room, I didn't know what to expect; I like to go into films blind (no trailers, no wikipedia searches, or social media lurking). In the end I was truly impressed, not just by the creativity of the filmmakers and their technical (sometimes self-taught) skills, but also by their abilities to portray different emotional states and move the audience. I cried at one point!

The screening opened with an animation titled Progress Mining, directed by ex-management consultant turned self-taught animator Gabriel Böhmer. This quirky film, where characters are made out of different fabrics and everything is quite literally strung together with thread, eerily captures the feeling of being confined to a capitalist corporate world where truth is obscured, and morality manipulated. Yet it also shows us that real people can still exist even under these circumstances. One dialogue line that stood out for me was when a character named Mary asks, “Do you want to say the right thing or do the right thing?” / “Do you want to be good or act good?" Despite its heavy themes, the film has an eccentric humour that drew a few laughs from the audience, myself included. This is certainly a film that will stay with me for a while, and a highlight of the programme.

Progress Mining was followed by a documentary titled Milk, directed by Miranda Stern. In this raw exploration of childhood trauma, grief, motherhood, and addiction, Miranda tells the story of her mother through different memory objects, and phone calls with friends and family members. Miranda is honest and composed, narrating some of the most traumatic events of her life with a kind of stoicism that brought tears to many in the room. The film felt like a beautiful tribute to her mother, a woman she never truly got to know, as she passed away when Miranda was a baby. Even though the themes here are heavy, Miranda also shows us the joy, humour, and humanity in her experience. This is a well-edited film, with a story that is told clearly, and with so much care.

The third short in the programme was an animation titled Bunnyhood, directed by Mansi Maheshwari, an NFTS graduate. Watching this film after Milk felt fitting due to the common theme they share. Despite the vastly different genres, styles, and narratives, both films explore motherhood and the complex bond between mother and child. Maheshwari's animation style stood out to me here due to its simple yet expressive and surreal nature. It suitably portrays the story of a child who witnesses his mother lie to him for the first time, and the earth-shattering anxiety and fear that moment brings. I really appreciated the pacing of this film; it keeps your attention and makes you want to catch every second. Even though this type of animation isn't usually my thing on an aesthetic level, I still found it a really enjoyable watch.

My second highlight of the programme, and the final film shown, was A Bear Remembers, directed by Linden Feng and Hannah Palumbo, a filmmaking duo that have worked together for many years now- having met in university. During the Q&A, the directors discussed the film's exploration of cultural displacement; that is certainly a theme I was struck with while watching. In this mysterious yet comforting story, set in a village surrounded by beautiful, now-abandoned hills, a bear ‘spirit' returns, feeling out of place, grieving a loss he is unable to exactly identify or articulate. The spirit is helped by an old woman who relates to the feeling of grief that comes with the passing of time and change in surroundings, and society. The character of a young man Peter adds a new perspective, building a bridge between older and younger generations existing on the same land. This film stirred a lot of feelings about the universal nature of loss and change.

Overall, this programme was a success. It was a moving and thought-provoking experience full of reflection and emotional depth.

In Vermiglio, the cold bites but it also keeps you alive.

Abeer Qureshi — 2025-03-15T13:34:00Z

1944. Wartime Italy. Icebound village. Maura Delpero's Vermiglio (2025) is truly an exquisite winner of the Venice Film Festival's Grand Jury.

The slow-burn family saga unspools the glimpses of joy swallowed by the void of war. It has the essence of a memoir with the period film rooted in the depths of Delpero's own family history. Timelessness pulses at the heart of the film. Tradition is a familiar, well-trodden path—especially for the schoolteacher and moral arbiter Cesare (Tommaso Ragno), whose esteemed position is built upon upholding age-old customs. The story follows his exhaustingly pregnant wife, Adele (Robera Rovelli) and their many children's lives. In the backdrop, hunger looms, casting a shadow of enduring struggle.

A serene suffocation permeates the snowy alpine landscape where fragile beauty veils seemingly queer moments. Cesare's well-mannered daughter Ada (Rachele Potrich) and her intense friendship with a rebel smoker who she admires (Carlotta Gamba), exposes the fragile dance between yearning and reality. Ada finds herself seeking contraband in her father's drawer, pleasuring herself behind cupboards and eats chicken poop as penance.

The more present thread in the familial tapestry is the romance which unfolds between Cesare's eldest doe-eyed daughter Lucia (Martina Scrinzi) and the charismatic lost soldier Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico). Their enchanting tale has the resonance of ‘star- cross'd lovers', or perhaps mountain-crossed lovers with the peaks they climb in every sense of the word. She falls pregnant and whispers of unspoken truths soon become
screams. Then silence falls again.

The casting is sublime. Every actor embodied their role with nuance that it was impossible not to be drawn into the familial dynamics. The delicate interplay of desire to please and subtle favouritism felt authentic and the innocence of the sisters was tender, from the intimate late-night talks to curious confessionals.

The symphony of mundanity, from the birdsong to the cows, can at times feel slumberous. Despite the occasional lull, each frame of Mikhail Krichman's cinematography feels worthwhile. It makes space for a simmering undercurrent of sorrow, and does well to delineate the narrative without the shades of icy blue melding into each other. Every minute is distinct.

The impeccable craft, however, suffers at times because of the overly complex, meandering narrative that struggles to remain focused on the family mosaic. The relationship between Cesare and his resentful son Dino becomes one too many threads to follow. In turn, it leads to a blurred and underdeveloped scattershot of some of the children's lives. Lucia's plotline is one that felt it needed more depth as she grappled with much more than the difficulties of motherhood.

The omnipresence of fate's cruel design is chilling. The frosty portrait of fragile existence morphs into a tender meditation on loss, longing and surviving. Adele and Cesare's marriage takes on the symbolic significance of a ticking clock. Adele's pregnancy marks the passage of time and the inevitable return of old patterns: a stark muted chaos.

In Vermiglio, the cold bites but it also keeps you alive.