Shooting the Short

We shot the whole day today for our short film (title pending). The topic, as mentioned in the last blog, was about self-identity and integration as a young Filipina living in Canada. Having four girls in the CLUTCH program with completely different backgrounds, philosophies, mentalities, personalities and (her)stories have made these past few weeks a rather interesting learning process, not to mention social experiment. We wanted to produce a short film that somehow combined our experiences together, without being overt or cheesy and while making it relatable to the audience. We wanted to emphasize one character’s internal struggle of displacement and the challenges of straddling between two different cultures.


Using Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince as inspiration for its story-telling magic and charming interrogative style, the short film is about a young Filipina narrating short stories and moments of her childhood in rural Philippines, which ironically clashes with visuals of urban life in Toronto.

We ran around Toronto today, with our main goal to capture the relationship between our main character, Kristina, and the city. I felt like we were guerilla filmmakers at certain points. We even had a mini tiff with one of the restaurant owners below my friend’s place where we shot at, in regards to asking “permission” to film (which we had). She apologized when my friend told her it was okay, to which I jokingly said, “I know — it’s weird to see a bunch of Filipino girls at one time” — to which she got surprisingly defensive. No matter — ‘twas quite humourous to see someone freak out at the thought of being accused of racism.

Back to the actual shoot: in plain words, Kristina was a natural. Her face and demeanor were perfect for the role. She interacted with street musicians and picked out fruit from the stands and walked down Kensington Market, nonchalantly passing the hustle and noise of people around her. Combined with Flerida and Daryl Anne’s video production experience, we’re all very excited (and curious) to see how this film will turn out. We’ll keep you posted…

DG