DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 08 March) — The documentary film A House in Pieces will make its world premiere on March 20 during the inaugural edition of the DaangDokyu Film Festival.
The world premiere will be held on Friday, March 20, at 8:30 p.m. at Cine Adarna, UPFI Film Center at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.
A House in Pieces portrays the struggle of displaced Meranaws trying to rebuild their lives and homes in war-ravaged Marawi. The five-month long war between government forces and the Islamic-State inspired Maute Group and its allies started on May 23, 2017 and all combat operations were terminated on October 23, 2017.
President Rodrigo Duterte, the first Mindanawon to lead the nation and the first who calims to have Meranaw roots, declared Marawi “liberated from the terrorist influence” on October 17, 2017.
Thirty-four months after they fled their villages, residents of the 250-hectare 24-barangay ‘Ground Zero,’ the main battle area in 2017, now referred to as Most Affected Area (MAA), have yet to return home.
With only 27 months left until the end of his six-year term, Duterte last Wednesday vowed to oversee the rehabilitation of Marawi and pay monthly visits to the country’s lone Islamic City to monitor the progress of the rehabilitation efforts.
The first feature-length film of Jean Claire Dy of Cagayan de Oro and Manuel Domes of Germany, A House in Pieces unfolds as an emotional journey weaving together the stories of its protagonists over a period of two years, among them, a displaced couple and their children yearning for freedom, income, and comfort after returning to their city and how returning to normalcy is “already a struggle.”
Dy and Domes said their documentery, an independent Philippine-German co-production, tell the aftermath of the war “as a universally relatable story about the loss and recovery of home.””
“The war-time destruction was not just the loss of physical structures: it also unraveled communities and disrupted lives and culture of a city considered as a historical center of Islam in the Philippines,” the filmmakers said.
DaangDokyu is a new documentary film festival celebrating 100 years of documentary filmmaking in the Philippines. The festival selected A House in Pieces for its world premiere.
After the screening of their film, Dy and Domes will join a Q&A session moderated by documentary filmmaker Adjani Arumpac.
Dy and Domes said they hope to spark conversations about the human consequences of the war in Marawi. The world premier of the film during the DaangDokyu festival is “to take stock of how we are as a nation and where we are headed” and is a “timely moment to begin these conversations.”
The trailer of A House in Pieces can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rffs4ztEOr8 (MindaNews)
