DIWA Filipino Film Showcase

Shooting Paradise: The Filipinos in the American Gaze presented by Adrian Ellis J. Alarilla June 7, 2:30 pm PST The medium of film has a sense of immediacy, of reality. Film makes tangible and visual people’s preconceived notions of previously unseen things. This new technology was used to the advantage of the rapidly expanding American empire at the turn of the 20th century. In this presentation, we will first be looking at how film technology was first developed and used in America, how it became a tool for colonization, and how the Americans perceived their brand new tropical colony at the turn of the 20th century

Adrian Alarilla is a PhD History student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa studying 20th century Filipino migration as well as Transpacific history and cinema. Born and raised in Manila, Philippines, he received his MA in Southeast Asia Studies at the University of Washington in 2018. He helps organize the Southeast Asia x Seattle Film Festival and the Diwa Filipino Film Festival. His films have been shown in Manila, Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Tijuana, and Phnom Penh. He has contributed to an upcoming collection of essays entitled Southeast Asian on Screen: From Independence to Financial Crisis (1945-1998), published by the Amsterdam University Press.