REVIEW: Supot [2016]

“What if I can’t stand the pain?” For some rural villages in the Philippines circumcision is a rite of passage for young boys. We’re not talking surgical removal by a doctor as a baby, though. This tradition takes place at age ten by a designated patriarch with a sharpened blade and rock. Each boy soaks in water to soften the foreskin, chews some guava leaves, and looks up into the sky as the knife comes down. To us it’s barbaric; to them it’s an evolution towards manhood. When cut you…

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REVIEW: Metro Manila [2013]

“Sometimes the only thing left to hold onto is the blade of a knife” The impetus for Sean Ellis‘ Metro Manila could have simply been an intriguing anecdote to tell people upon returning to England from a trip visiting a friend in the Philippines and for most it would have. Unable to shake the disquieting scene witnessed, however, the writer/director begun crafting a story that gave two nameless armored truck drivers engaged in an argument a history. Enlisting the help of Frank E. Flowers, he used the incident between them…

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