Taxibol | Taxibol |
by Tommaso Santambrogio
Italy, 2023, 50 min
The first part of the film is the result if this strange meeting; Lav and Gustavo guided by me talked and jumped spontaneously from their historical and emotional background to the one of their countries, from their love-relational difficulties to their socio-political commitment towards two post-colonial countries affected by terribles deviations and distortions - Cuba and the Philippines. Through their individual experiences I had the chance to give a further and peculiar look at two countries where justice has always struggled to find space; as a consequence, in the second part of the film I chose to analyse and to observe this space, to dissect this unheard cry of justice which is gradually becoming more and more deafening.
The silent observation of the daily repetition and reiteration of the evil, embodied in the figure of the former Filipino general Juan Mijares Cruz (a man close to Marcos and his bloody government exiled in Cuba after the end of his legacy), was the result.
In the movie, the former general - wanted by Gustavo Flecha and Lav Diaz - lives in a farm where still subtly exerts a power and a constant violence, echo of what he committed in the Philippines’ archipelago in the 1980s.