A Filipino documentary spotlighting the daily struggles of fishermen, naval cooks and coastguard personnel in the contested South China Sea has earned international recognition, with its director telling This Week in Asia that the award was a validation of honest storytelling in the face of political pressure from Beijing to cancel its screening.
Advertisement
Food Delivery: Fresh from the West Philippine Sea took home the Tides of Change prize at the Doc Edge Festival in Auckland, New Zealand, on July 3. Directed by Baby Ruth Villarama, the film chronicles the human dimension of Manila’s maritime claims, offering what she described as a “gentle yet powerful” way of reframing geopolitical tensions.
Villarama is best known for her award-winning 2016 documentary Sunday Beauty Queen about Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong, which earned Best Picture at the Metro Manila Film Festival. Her latest film’s win in New Zealand comes after it was pulled from a Philippine event earlier this year for undisclosed reasons.
Just days before its scheduled premiere at Manila’s Puregold CinePanalo Festival in March, the festival organiser and film producer released a joint statement confirming the movie had been pulled. “While the decision was made jointly … it is clear that external factors played a role in this outcome,” they said, without providing further details.
Villarama told This Week in Asia the experience was disheartening, but her team “quietly submitted” the film to overseas festivals. Doc Edge was the first to respond.
Advertisement
“They saw it not as a threat, but as an urgent human story worth sharing with the world and the people of New Zealand,” she said.