By Julienne Raboca
“I do believe one of the causes of our underrepresentation is the lack of creative and cultural leaders…As Filipinos, we enjoy entertaining and provide happiness by giving space, but we are not great at taking space,” says Christopher Reyes, Maharlika UK artistic director, during the launch of The Third Wave, a film screening of short films developed by Filipino-British artists.
And take space they did at Rich Mix in Shoreditch one busy evening in April. The event showcased original films alongside panel discussions as part of a broader initiative that included a two-week creative development programme for 16 selected creatives.
Reconnecting with Filipino identity through art
Maharlika UK’s “The Wave Project” began as an initiative during the height of anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic. “Originally, this project was designed to deliver artistic works driven by Filipino identity in live immersive and theatre spaces,” says dance artist and curator Reyes. However, the pandemic brought no small amount of uncertainty.
“With no clear end to the lockdown in sight and mounting concerns about health and Covid victims, I decided to adapt the strategy for digital platforms,” Reyes says. This was how the cinema aspect of the project came into play.
Funded by the Arts Council England, The First Wave debuted in 2022 with a selection of short films streamed globally. It set precedence for the second and third editions. “I didn’t know how popular filmmaking was in UK Filipino communities before this,” he says. “As an artist who has navigated most of his creative career and cultural upbringing outside of them, this felt like a spiritual calling… a reconnection to my identity and home.”
Filming untold stories
“We were drawing from our own relationship to the experience of growing up between cultures,” says filmmaker Ashley Alcaide, who directed Out of Step (Wala Ka sa Lugar). Selected through a call for submissions, Alcaide spent two months creating his short film with dancer and actor Sarah-Luna Ace and music artist Kris Paulerice.
Paulerice took sound clips from London and the Philippines to score the film, showing Ace dancing through everyday scenes. According to Alcaide, the team tried to express their understanding of their Filipino roots while growing up in London.
The film Next Song: Alon By Kristy Reyes 902322 parodied 80s and 90s style karaoke videos commonplace in even the most rural areas of the Philippines. The film shows a downtrodden immigrant worker walking into a karaoke bar where he starts singing his heart out. On the screen, a non-binary character in drag frolics behind the song lyrics. The film captures the distinctive way that Filipino culture tends to combine sadness and pain with absurdity and mirth—much like drag.
According to director Sofia Del Carmen, the piece uses the framework of karaoke as a form of gathering and expression in Filipino culture, “approached with heavy parody, original Filipino music, drag and craziness.”
The short film Ginhawa, which means abundance in Tagalog, follows a restaurant worker Christie as she grapples with a growing sense of displacement in her daily life in the UK. “Her journey highlights the power of embracing one’s heritage,” says writer and performer Anjelica Serra.
Serra says Maharlika UK serves an important purpose. “I’ve been looking for something like this for years. Other cultures would have…community theatre groups in areas I was living at the time or nearby, and they were never for us.”
Serra tears up as she recalls that there was never any creative space for Filipinos to tell their stories. “When I was coming up in my career, it was very lonely to try and find your way, and not find anyone who understands you.”
“Coming into this space… now you know those people exist,” she says. Serra wishes platforms like Maharlika UK which supports Filipino artists had come sooner.
Art as a language to tell Filipinos’ stories
Maharlika UK founder Christopher Reyes believes there are decades of history exploring the British-Filipino experience that has never been told. This includes his own experience of navigating two different cultures as a second-generation immigrant. Born and raised in London during the 80s, he always felt he was not fully accepted as a Filipino.
Similarly, he acknowledges that “I never fully embraced or appreciated what it means to be Filipino,” pointing to cultural disconnection from his parents’ heritage. “I don’t fault anyone for this. My mother, an early migrant worker, did what she had to do to raise three brown kids during a period when the UK was adapting to migrant settlers. It was a different time, which called for a mentality to survive and be accepted in the UK.”
Reyes began Maharlika UK to share the experiences of those in the UK Filipino diaspora, which “must be heard in order to be accepted.” He hopes to engage in fresh cultural dialogue across generations of Filipinos through his work.
“I want to build mutual understanding that will form a cohesive community, and achieve this through art,” says Reyes. “If we can’t speak our mother tongue, then art is the universal language to tell our stories.”
About the author
Julienne or Yeni is an experienced journalist with over a decade of international exposure, blending her skills in digital marketing, content management, and communications. She is a European Commission scholar at City, University of London, currently completing her MA in Journalism, Media and Globalisation, focusing on business and innovation.
