WBW 28: Small Steps Build Courage to Take the Big Leap

This week's title has been said many times over, by many different philosophers, thinkers, by entire cultures and races. It only proves that this mindset exists because it is based on a universal experience – that little efforts contribute to the attainment of a greater objective. And more often than not, people realize it upon hindsight. No one takes those “first steps” with full knowledge that they are on a journey of a thousand miles. Watch this week's session by award-winning documentary filmmaker Ditsi Carolino as she retraces how she took her first steps to arrive at the decisive plunge to constantly pursue what she loves to do.

Who Is Ditsi Carolino?

Ditsi Carolino is an award-winning director and producer of documentary films that deal with social issues in the Philippines, such as agrarian reform, child labor, and informal settlement, among others. Her critically acclaimed documentaries Riles, Bunso, and Minsan Lang Sila Bata all feature the signature style of Ditsi, by putting a face to the human rights issue she is trying to address and bring to the public’s attention.

Originally a Biology student working toward a pre-Medicine degree at the University of the Philippines, she shifted to sociology as a response to the militant sentiment during the Martial Law era. After graduating in 1982, she worked for a nongovernmental organization based in Mindanao, learning photography along the way, to document the issues the local people faced. Thereafter, she joined the TV show “The Probe Team”, a showcase of investigative journalism, as production assistant.

Eventually, she learned documentary filmmaking. And the rest, as they say, is history.

When asked what's her greatest challenge and success?

Ditsi had a bit of difficulty answering these questions so we decided to skip it altogether :)

Show notes:

NGO Roots

• Always wanting to help people and be immersed and aware of what’s going on in society, Ditsi discovered photography in a Davao-based NGO, Development Education Media Service (DEMS).
• With limited resources, she had multiple tasks at DEMS – as a researcher on health situations and human rights cases, and as a photographer.
• Becoming a photographer, she felt that the pictures she took were more eloquent in delivering the real situation in her area.

Stories Unfolding

• The critically-acclaimed documentary film “Bunso” is about kids in jail.
• Documentary films are just like narrative films. You need to research locations. You need to do casting, on the subject to be featured.
• Now I look for very compelling stories that may not have funding but are very important. Just shoot it!
• My then-boyfriend, now my husband, works for an NGO doing alternative lawyering work. He told me about the stories of suffering farmers. This was the start of Lupang Hinarang.
• In my mind, it was already a story unfolding. I asked myself, wala ka bang gagawin? So I took my camera and started filming with the farmers, all the way until they won their land.
• After I shoot the material, I just keep the film shelved for quite some time, hoping that someday we’d have the money to edit them and get them out so people can watch.

Difficulties Experienced

• Once you’ve established a relationship and rapport with these people, for example the farmers protesting in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), when you join them in their homes and their areas, you already feel right at home.
• I prefer to shoot in the provinces than in front of DAR, because it’s noisy. And if you’ve handled a camera, it’s hard to get good sound if you have vehicular traffic all around you.
• It’s hot and dark, too. This is also the same experience shooting “Bunso” in the prisons.
• No problem about shooting the marginalized people, but better if we shoot in the rural areas. Like the indigenous people and the children at war in Mindanao.
• You don’t sleep in hotels because it’s a self-assignment. You sleep in the farmers’ huts. It’s a different kind of immersion and exposure, because you’re brought out of your comfort zone.

What Fuels Ditsi

• These are the stories I am drawn to. If you can somehow make a difference, why not.
• When you go on immersion and see the situation of your subjects, like the children who are thrown in jail with hardened adult criminals, you really see that something’s wrong, yet not all people know about it.
• I feel I need to film them, so that I can show it to others, and they will feel as if they also went on an immersion or exposure.
• After having seen an hour or so of your film, you get a sense of the situation, and you’re not just supposed to feel sad or ugly, but also to do something worthwhile.

Bringing About Change

• The thing about documentary films that tell the plight of the marginalized is that these films intend to bring about change. If I were to do a documentary about the rich and the famous, what change can you contribute to society, to the world?
• Unless it’s a story on good governance, of a politician who really wants to implement change to his area. I would be interested in doing something like that.
• There’s so much social injustice around, but you have ordinary people who may lack education, but who step up to the occasion because there’s a need, there’s an issue. When these people speak, sometimes they speak so well that they even sound like lawyers because of their deep knowledge of the laws that affect their issues, rights and concerns. You will be amazed at what they know and how they can deliver it.

Generosity Among The Least

• Likewise, you will be amazed at the generosity and kindness of heart of these marginalized people. In “Riles”, I encountered a married couple who was very poor, but still chose to adopt three children, when the mother of these children died from getting run over by a train.
• This kind of generosity is extremely hard to find. And when you find it in people who have so little, it inspires you.
• When you see the great sacrifice of the farmers who went on hunger strike for 29 days, for the land that they were fighting for, how can you not do whatever it is that you can do, to think that your sacrifice is so much less than theirs?
• A student from Ateneo told me at a screening of “Lupang Hinarang” that she has long heard about the story of agrarian reform and peasant unrest, but it was only after watching the film that she started to care – because the issue was humanized; a face was attached to the issue of agrarian reform, turning it into the story of specific individuals. This is what makes students connect with the issues and the people involved in them.

Dealing With Challenges

• You need to do a film that you’re so passionate about. That’s the first challenge there. It takes a long time and a lot of resources to make a documentary, because it’s an unfolding story.
• The next challenge is to find the resources to make this film possible. Your disposition should be “Go Go Go!” right at the beginning.
• The next challenge, you need to learn the skills in order to get the film funded. That’s what I’m bad at, because I haven’t written proposals for quite some time.
• You also have to learn the marketing and distribution aspects. I’m also starting to learn that know. We were able to sell “Riles” to BBC – that was very good. We need more of that.

No Internal Struggle

• My mom expected at first that she was going to be a doctor. I don’t like to think too far off. I go with the flow and listen to my heart. I do what I really want to do.
• I never knew that sociology would lead me to NGO work, which led me to photography, which led me to documentary filmmaking. These are things that you can “connect the dots” now, on hindsight. But back then, you couldn’t. You just see things a few steps at a time, but you do need to respond very quickly, honestly, and bravely to that call.
• Sometimes you’d think that it’s craziness to pursue it because there’s no money in it. But sometimes you just need to jump.

Selling Out?

• Will I do a commercial narrative film? Some people have suggested that to me. Some think that documentaries are just a stepping stone to doing the “real thing” – narrative films. But strangely enough, I have no interest and skill in doing narrative films. I wouldn’t know how to set up a five-minute scene.
• In fact, appearing before the camera, like now, is a rare thing for me.
• I grew up with parents who never really kept instilling in me that I have to make money. It’s the pressure of having to make money that makes you really fearful about some things.
• Because it’s not really a major consideration for me, it was just really a jump – because I really wanted to do it. I was also a responsible student, so my parents just kinda let me be.
• What I think is harder is making films but without resources. It’s really difficult, especially when one is married and wants to start a family. How are you going to make all these films with no funding? But it pushes you to other challenges, like how do you think of the business side of it? It is hard work. Those are skills that don’t come naturally to me, and I still have to learn them – but I’m willing to learn.

Next Few Years

• I’m going to nail down this producing, marketing and distribution bit, hopefully. If not alone, then collaboratively, with other people who are so much better at this than I am.
• And then I’d also like to do the five films I’ve always been thinking of doing.

Lessons

• Immerse yourself in the situation.
• Love makes you do incredible things.
• Generosity is hard to find these days. But it is more remarkable to find it in those who have almost completely nothing to give.

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