Rewind to 2004
Thank you faithlessphil
A world without Alexis
By Philbert Ortiz Dy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Last updated 23:14:00 09/04/2009
I WOULD like to talk about courage.
Despite us having many of the same friends and working in the same field, I met Alexis Tioseco only this year. It was January, in Rotterdam. We were both there for the festival; I as trainee of the young critics program, he as festival guest, as the accepted authority on the films of our region.
I told him I didn’t know what to expect, and I was kind of scared. It’s one thing to be panning the latest Joel Lamangan movie at home. It’s another thing to suddenly be in an international film festival, talking with people who have a lot more experience and knowledge about film.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said.
Over the next few days, every time I ran into Alexis, he would be introducing me to another critic, another festival programmer, another obscure filmmaker whose work I had to see. He would introduce me by talking about my work. “He sat through Melancholia and blogged the entire thing,” or “he did a set report on a Joel Lamangan film.” And people would give a knowing chuckle, and let me into their circle. Alexis vouched for me, after all.
I do not know what I would’ve done without Alexis. Holed up in my hotel room, perhaps hiding from the Germans berating me for not having seen much Skolimowski, just trying to get through writing my festival reports, I could not imagine what it must have been like for Alexis just a few years ago, taking on this criticism thing all on his own, being sent to strange lands, having his opinions questioned, challenged and asked for by people with decades of experience above him.
We all know, of course, that Alexis did swimmingly, and that he had become one of the most respected and beloved critics of the region. Soft-spoken, eloquent, and so confident in what he had to say, Alexis easily won over the international critics’ community.
Fighting for change
I would like to talk about courage.
A few months back, Erwin Romulo asked me if I could write a cover story for the Philippines Free Press about the Cinemalaya Film Festival. I told him there wasn’t anything to write about, since Cinemalaya hadn’t screened the films for the press.
Then he proposed I write an opinion piece about the failings of Cinemalaya, reassessing the festival’s goals. I replied, “I could do that, but that sounds like Alexis territory.”
See, while I have spent most of my career simply writing about movies, Alexis was the guy you’d go to for the bigger picture. He was the guy who would fix things, going after the systemic flaws of the industry as a whole. He once rallied some of the industry’s top filmmakers to put their names on a position paper critical of what the Metro Manila Film Festival had begun. He’s been the champion of our cinematic heritage, fighting for a way to keep prints of old films from disappearing completely.
And he’d been talking about the flaws of Cinemalaya long before I even became aware there were problems. Again, it was Alexis territory, and I feared encroaching on that space.
Erwin urged me to write it anyway. When it was published, Alexis made sure that it was read by everyone who mattered. He was interviewed on TV, and he kept quoting my article as if I had said things he couldn’t have said any better.
But though I talked a good fight, I was never the one at the vanguard of the argument.
Alexis was. Everytime.
He stayed
I would like to talk about courage.
I always cringe a little when people talk about a senseless death, because it implies the existence of a sensible death, of which there is no such thing. Life, for all its drama and irony, is the sensible way to be.
Every death, be it noble, natural, random, painful or quick, is like a tear in the very fabric of our consciousness. There is a void left where a person used to be, and no level of understanding will ever make that better.
On the morning the news broke of Alexis and Nika’s death, the term was used liberally. By it, of course, people meant that the circumstances of their death were by no means logical, that they could not trace a line between the previous events of the couple’s lives that would lead them to such a horrible fate.
But even that is not accurate. The line is actually pretty clear.
They are gone because they stayed.
Alexis could’ve gone back to Canada, or used his credentials to get a job pretty much anywhere else in the world. He could’ve, like so many others, taken one look at the insurmountable tasks facing anyone who genuinely wants to change things in this country, and abandon it all for greener pastures, brighter shores.
And Nika could’ve stayed in Slovenia, closer to her family and everything she’d already worked for in her country.
But they were here. Out of love. Alexis stayed out of love for our cinema. Because there was so much he wanted to fight for, because he was brave enough to fight for all of it. And Nika, dear Nika, stayed out of love for Alexis, finding the courage to leave almost everything behind for a dreamer and his dreams.
Love gives us courage, after all.
I would like to talk about courage, because I am afraid of a world without Alexis. He was a colleague, an ally, a friend, someone who gave me courage to keep doing what I do, even if no one is listening.
A world without Alexis
By Philbert Ortiz Dy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Last updated 23:14:00 09/04/2009
I WOULD like to talk about courage.
Despite us having many of the same friends and working in the same field, I met Alexis Tioseco only this year. It was January, in Rotterdam. We were both there for the festival; I as trainee of the young critics program, he as festival guest, as the accepted authority on the films of our region.
I told him I didn’t know what to expect, and I was kind of scared. It’s one thing to be panning the latest Joel Lamangan movie at home. It’s another thing to suddenly be in an international film festival, talking with people who have a lot more experience and knowledge about film.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said.
Over the next few days, every time I ran into Alexis, he would be introducing me to another critic, another festival programmer, another obscure filmmaker whose work I had to see. He would introduce me by talking about my work. “He sat through Melancholia and blogged the entire thing,” or “he did a set report on a Joel Lamangan film.” And people would give a knowing chuckle, and let me into their circle. Alexis vouched for me, after all.
I do not know what I would’ve done without Alexis. Holed up in my hotel room, perhaps hiding from the Germans berating me for not having seen much Skolimowski, just trying to get through writing my festival reports, I could not imagine what it must have been like for Alexis just a few years ago, taking on this criticism thing all on his own, being sent to strange lands, having his opinions questioned, challenged and asked for by people with decades of experience above him.
We all know, of course, that Alexis did swimmingly, and that he had become one of the most respected and beloved critics of the region. Soft-spoken, eloquent, and so confident in what he had to say, Alexis easily won over the international critics’ community.
Fighting for change
I would like to talk about courage.
A few months back, Erwin Romulo asked me if I could write a cover story for the Philippines Free Press about the Cinemalaya Film Festival. I told him there wasn’t anything to write about, since Cinemalaya hadn’t screened the films for the press.
Then he proposed I write an opinion piece about the failings of Cinemalaya, reassessing the festival’s goals. I replied, “I could do that, but that sounds like Alexis territory.”
See, while I have spent most of my career simply writing about movies, Alexis was the guy you’d go to for the bigger picture. He was the guy who would fix things, going after the systemic flaws of the industry as a whole. He once rallied some of the industry’s top filmmakers to put their names on a position paper critical of what the Metro Manila Film Festival had begun. He’s been the champion of our cinematic heritage, fighting for a way to keep prints of old films from disappearing completely.
And he’d been talking about the flaws of Cinemalaya long before I even became aware there were problems. Again, it was Alexis territory, and I feared encroaching on that space.
Erwin urged me to write it anyway. When it was published, Alexis made sure that it was read by everyone who mattered. He was interviewed on TV, and he kept quoting my article as if I had said things he couldn’t have said any better.
But though I talked a good fight, I was never the one at the vanguard of the argument.
Alexis was. Everytime.
He stayed
I would like to talk about courage.
I always cringe a little when people talk about a senseless death, because it implies the existence of a sensible death, of which there is no such thing. Life, for all its drama and irony, is the sensible way to be.
Every death, be it noble, natural, random, painful or quick, is like a tear in the very fabric of our consciousness. There is a void left where a person used to be, and no level of understanding will ever make that better.
On the morning the news broke of Alexis and Nika’s death, the term was used liberally. By it, of course, people meant that the circumstances of their death were by no means logical, that they could not trace a line between the previous events of the couple’s lives that would lead them to such a horrible fate.
But even that is not accurate. The line is actually pretty clear.
They are gone because they stayed.
Alexis could’ve gone back to Canada, or used his credentials to get a job pretty much anywhere else in the world. He could’ve, like so many others, taken one look at the insurmountable tasks facing anyone who genuinely wants to change things in this country, and abandon it all for greener pastures, brighter shores.
And Nika could’ve stayed in Slovenia, closer to her family and everything she’d already worked for in her country.
But they were here. Out of love. Alexis stayed out of love for our cinema. Because there was so much he wanted to fight for, because he was brave enough to fight for all of it. And Nika, dear Nika, stayed out of love for Alexis, finding the courage to leave almost everything behind for a dreamer and his dreams.
Love gives us courage, after all.
I would like to talk about courage, because I am afraid of a world without Alexis. He was a colleague, an ally, a friend, someone who gave me courage to keep doing what I do, even if no one is listening.