About

'Residents of the Tondo district of north western Manila live in a dense, yet vast expanse of small wooden houses, on a platform protruding over the ocean. A mother lives there with three children, and is carrying her forth. Their house has only a single room, where her children play by imagining stories from the pirated DVD covers they hang on the walls. Light shines through cracks in the wooden boards, illuminating their mother's hands. The voices of nearby children, the sounds of dogs and chickens and the rumble of the harbor all reverberate in a cacophonous living space, which stimulates the senses as it flows in cinematic time.' Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival

'Tondo holds a unique place in Philippine culture and society. Being one of the nation's oldest extant districts and the birthplace of the Philippine Revolution, the current of national history is imprinted deep in its everyday grind. In Tondo, Beloved: To What Are the Poor Born? this place ceases to become just a source of a story, but becomes the story itself. The story is something we've always known but never fully understood – the oppressively constant contrast between survival and affluence. This time, it is reflected in the smallest things in the smallest homes and in the most uneventful hours of everyday life, moving along in slow unblinking time that escapes the film characters' memories as it pervades ours.' Jewel Maranan

Ages 18+