Showing posts with label Fathers of Circumstances. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fathers of Circumstances. Show all posts

Fathers of Circumstances: A Father's Day Weekend Film Program at Shangri-La Plaza What makes a father? Is it blood, presence, choice—or circumstance?

This June, Fathers of Circumstances brings together five deeply moving films from Japan and the Philippines that challenge conventional ideas of fatherhood. The screenings will take place on June 14–15, 2025 at Red Carpet Cinemas, Shangri-La Plaza, curated by Eunice Helera, a film programmer and festival coordinator. The program is part of the Professional Development and Networking Initiative for ASEAN-Japan Film Programmers and Curators, organized by the Japan Foundation in partnership with the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF). 

The lineup features Like Father, Like Son (2013) by Hirokazu Kore-eda, Dear Etranger (2017) by Yukiko Mishima, Close-Knit (2017) by Naoko Ogigami, Kinakausap ni Celso ang Diyos (2024) by Gilb Baldoza, and Ang Tatay Kong Nanay (1978) by Lino Brocka. 

These films span across class, gender, and kinship—offering a spectrum of what it means to care, provide, and stay. Kore-eda’s exploration of fatherhood from both affluent and working-class perspectives finds resonance in Baldoza’s Filipino fathers, who may lack money but never intention. In Mishima’s Dear Etranger, the longing to be accepted as a stepfather is quiet and piercing. In Close-Knit and Ang Tatay Kong Nanay, it is a transgender woman and a gay man who step into the role of parent—not through biology, but through pure will and love.