Storm Children, Book One

In 2013, Typhoon Yolanda made landfall on the Philippines, battering its infrastructure and leaving thousands of people dead in its wake. Shortly after, critically acclaimed Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz turned his camera on the coastal town of Tacloban in order to capture the devastation endured by its inhabitants. A haunting and elegiac observational documentary about three children coping with the disaster, Storm Children, Book One displays Diaz’s signature black-and-white cinematography and eviscerating long takes to highlight the persistence and resolution of the Tacloban community. Through their daily tasks of foraging for food and playing among the coastal debris, Diaz’s storm children reveal the costs of human resilience within the increasing threat of climate change in our 21st-century terrain.  

(Lav Diaz, Philippines, 2014, 143 min., DCP) 

This screening is presented in conjunction with the Department of Cinema and Media Studies 2018 Graduate Student Conference, Sensing Media (April 20 and 21). The conference is organized by Dave Burnham, Gary Kafer, and Amy Skjerseth.