The First Water is the Body
Titled after Natalie Diaz’s 2020 poem, The First Water is the Body is a program of queer Filipino short films whose intimacies are tied to images of water and its mutability. These shorts tackle false dichotomoies queer people learn to outgrow—between love and loss, labor and exploitation, selfhood and community, submission and resistance. Quiet yet audacious, the program traces queer temporalities, mutable identities, and unrealized futures. It renders transparent the bodies that hold these invisible longings and fears, revealing how life demands us to become like water: at once life-giving and perilous, unpredictable and uncontainable.
Programmer’s Note | Jason Tan Liwag
S-EXPRESS 2025: PHILIPPINES
The First Water is the Body
Total Duration: 107:51
For Mature audience only/untuk dewasa (18+)
[d]: Director / [w]: Writter
ABUTAN MAN TAYO NG HOUSELIGHTS (When the houselights come on)
[d][w] Apa Agbayani
Philippines / 2023 / Fiction / 13:33
In 2044, a middle-aged gay man finds himself aging out of the Manila rave scene. A chance encounter with a mischievous ex-lover changes the tune of his last kembot.
A CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRL
[d][w] Myra Angeline Soriaso
Philippines / 2023 / Fiction / 18:04
A 15-year-old A-student defies her all-girls Catholic school as she confronts her feelings for a school nun.
THE RIVER THAT NEVER ENDS
[d][w] JT Trinidad
Philippines / 2022 / Fiction / 18:56
Along a river that undergoes a major change, Baby, a middle-aged transwoman, shuttles between her job as a companion-for-hire for strangers and her duty to her father.
MICROPLASTICS
[d][w] Lino Balmes
Philippines / 2023 / Fiction/Experimental / 17:56
A few ordinary days in the life of a lonesome 7-year-old who grows up to be a middle-aged man still clueless about where to find happiness.
RAMPAGE! (O Ang Parada) (RAMPAGE! (or the parade))
[d][w] Kukay Bautista Zinampan
Philippines / 2024 / Fiction / 19:46
Every first of May, taxidermied bodies of queer kids killed by the State are paraded as Saints. Three dissidents try reclaim the body of their murdered little sister to give her a proper burial.
WATER SPORTS
[d][w] Whammy Alcazaren
Philippines / 2024 / Fiction/Experimental / 19:36
Two sad boys harness the power of their love in an attempt to survive a world devastated by climate change.
Programmer’s Bio:
Jason Tan Liwag is a Filipino scientist, actor, writer, educator, and curator whose work examines the life cycle of moving images in Southeast Asia. He is an alumnus of film criticism programs in Locarno, Rotterdam, Udine, Yamagata, and Manila. He programs shorts for QCinema and the Leeds International Film Festival and is the founder of the Critics Lab.