Adjani Arumpac

GUERREROS Philippine moving image

About

Adjani Guerrero Arumpac is an independent Filipina documentary filmmaker, media scholar, and a tenured faculty member at the University of the Philippines Film Institute. She is a recipient of the UK Government Chevening Scholarship, through which she earned her Master of Arts in Digital Media and Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Her works have been showcased in local and international festivals and biennales. Notable venues include the Gwangju Biennale, the Asia-Pacific Triennial, and film festivals such as the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, DMZ International Documentary Film Festival, ChopShots Documentary Film Festival, Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival, Jocelyne Saab’s Cultural Resistance International Film Festival, among others.

Her scholarly contributions represent a synthesis of posthumanist theory and ethical media literacy. By merging her practice as a documentarist with her academic research, she frames media as a dynamic extension of human agency that actively negotiates the power structures of the present.

Documentary Films

Won 2nd Place in the 2007 Gawad CCP Para sa Alternatibong Pelikula at Video and screened in the 2007 Kontra-Agos Resistance Film Festival and 2012 Cinema Rehiyon.

Walai prods on the memories of four Muslim women who once lived in the infamous White House in Cotabato City. The documentary seeks narratives in “places...we tend to feel without history.” It traces the past through the women's experience of what has happened inside the wrecked home—nostalgia and fear, loss and love, and birth and death.

"In the history of Mindanaw and Sulu Cinema, the year 2006 marks an important period in terms of national exposure. Adjani Arumpac, a documentarist whose family came from South Cotabato, produced a UP Film Institute thesis titled Walai (Home). The film traces the memories of the past through the experiences of four Muslim women who happened to live inside the wrecked White House in Cotabato City." —Jay Jomar F. Quintos, MindaNews

Won in the Best Documentary category of the 2014 Gawad Urian. Screened in the Cinemaralita: First Film Festival about the Urban Philippine Poor; ASEAN Film Screenings, Talks, and Exhibition; 8th Southeast Asian Cinemas Conference in Film Archive; New Narratives Film Festival; Mumbai International Festival for Documentary, Short & Animation Films; Women and War: The Third World War II Film Festival, among others.

Mother Mameng tells the story of beloved octogenarian Philippine mass leader Carmen Deunida, popularly known as Mother Mameng. At 84, she continues to be a living inspiration in the people’s struggle for basic human rights. She has dedicated her life to uplifting the dignity of her impoverished countrymen against bleak conditions of forcible eviction and economic dislocation. The documentary spans her experience of living under the regime of 13 Philippine presidents, all of whom did not make substantial change for the Filipino people.

Won the 2013 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival New Asian Currents Special Mention Award and nominated in the Best Documentary category of the 2014 Gawad Urian. Screened in the Philippines: An Archipelago of Exchange Exhibition at Branly Museum, France; 4th Southeast Asian Film Festival; 1st SalaMindanaw International Film Festival; ChopShots Documentary Film Festival; ASEAN Film Festival; International Competition Human Rights Human Dignity International Film Festival; 11th Beijing Independent Film Festival; International Competition Jocelyne Saab's Cultural Resistance International Film Festival; 6th DMZ International Documentary Film Festival; Docsliboa 12th Festival Internacional de Cinema; Contemporary Essay Film Programme Essay Film Festival; 2014 Documentary Dream Show—Yamagata in Tokyo; 10th Mindanao Film Festival; 13th Festival Film Dokumenter; ARKIPEL Jakarta International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival; New Narratives Film Festival; Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival; among others.

War is a Tender Thing retells the blood-soaked story of war-torn Southern Philippines. Portrayed by the media as a locus of unbridgeable conflicts between and among different cultures living side by side, this documentary gently unravels the war as an endless attempt at survival and adaptation of the Southern Philippine citizens to state policies that disregard the most basic concept of home. How does one account for the many lives played upon by these political maneuvers that have not taken into consideration the faceless and nameless? One listens to their stories, however imperfect, however partial. These memories make up a narrative of the war that is as cogent as the factual telling.

"Arumpac has shown in her documentary that if facts are understanding, then art is clarity. We need them both to end our own tender war." —Kong Rithdee, Bangkok Post

"Thus, Rancajale’s and Arumpac’s documentaries removed the illusion of harmony propagated by the political elites and commodified by the mass media. In these two documentaries, instead of being denied and commodified, conflict is viewed as something real that compels the audience to understand its root and imagine an authentic reconciliation. This is because documentary films always bring us closer to reality, if not truth." —Budi Irawanto, President, Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival

Screened in the 67th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, 2021 Image Forum Festival, Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival, 2022 Hanoi International Film Festival, 11th Asia-Pacific Triennial, among others.

Count is a video essay that explores data generated in a milieu of oppression. Set during the Philippine pandemic lockdown, the longest in the world enforced with strict police rule, it ruminates on the formal patterns found in the everyday. Folding in news of the outside world bearing numbers of the Philippine Drug War and COVID-19 fatalities into the everyday, it seeks to map how the spectre of a colonial history impinges on the daily contemporary life of a middle class family.

"Arumpac weaves an effective tale of how the world outside rushes in, reinscribing the domestic life, creating an indelible blend of images, meanings, words, and memories." -—Shekhar Deshpande, Senses of Cinema

"The selected works reflect a wide tableau of impressions, reflections, and innovative filmmaking techniques during the pandemic era, and span North America, Europe, the Philippines, Japan, China, and also Taiwan. As the pandemic has confined people’s movement, filmmakers began to turn to their private lives and daily routines. A brilliant example is internationally acclaimed Filipina director Adjani ARUMPAK’s (sic) new video essay Count (2020) that documents her working from home, joining online meetings and her kids’ interactions against the somber backdrop of the war on drugs and the pandemic with their constantly increasing death tolls." -—Adriana Rosati, Asian Movie Pulse

Other AV Works

Curated Programs and Exhibitions

Publications/Presentations

Exhibitions

Selected Television Work

Selected Archival Projects

Jury/Screening Committee Work

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