Cinemalaya 2014: Documented

It's that time of the year again folks - Cinemalaya, the country's largest independent film festival. On it's tenth year, we start with a documentary.

Here in the Philippines, we call them TnTs, Filipino for "tago ng tago." They are people constantly in hiding, illegal immigrants living in a country without the papers needed for legal residency. Jose Antonio Vargas was one of those people, brought over from a the Philippines to live a life in America. He didn't realize that he was undocumented until he was sixteen. And then, he decided to declare to the world that he was undocumented a few years ago, and in a way, nothing has been quite the same ever since.

Documented is a story of Vargas' life as a child of two countries; spending his childhood in the Philippines with his mother, then spending his adolescent and adult life in the United States, where he ate, spoke and lived American. It tells the story of how this secret of his made him live in a world of constant fear - of the possibility of being deported. But it also helped him find some allies: he found mother and father figures for the mother that he lost by leaving. He found a voice in expressing himself through journalism, which taught him to ask the right questions. 

Vargas was clearly a victim of circumstance. One might ask, why don't people just  apply for legality? The answer is it's not that simple, and it's that very thing that Vargas and other people are fighting for in this film. Along the way, we see Americans who want nothing more to drive these people out of their land. But these people are not parasites. Many are honest, taxpaying citizens who want to do nothing more than contribute to the country they grew up in and live their lives.

The film also takes a look a the smaller scale picture, as it explores Vargas' relationships with his relatives. It puts a human face to the otherwise abstract, faceless idea of these people in limbo between the country they grew up in, and the country they came from. Therein lies the film's heart, which is packed with genuinely emotional (and sometimes funny) moments.

Documented was an enlightening experience and a great first step for the festival's tenth anniversary. To know more about this, you can always visit Vargas' site, Define American.