Ian Laczi

The diaspora of Filipinos around the globe is driven mostly by the economics of supply and demand. The yearning for something better, stability, and self-validation leads a handful of sojourners from the provinces of the Philippines into the arms of one of its former colonial masters — the USA. But what happens when they finally get what they want? And how? Filmmaker Dennis Empalmado explores the musings of Filipino expatriates and hopeful immigrants in "Naglalakbay" (Travelers).

It is like any other day in Artiaga Street when men eat dogs and get drunk and women have to succumb to their husbands’ aggressiveness. Mariana, pregnant with her second child has been planning for this day. She is fed-up. She wants to break loose. On the ground floor, her husband’s dog barks incessantly. Upstairs the baby cries constantly waiting to be fed. She has to fight. A woman, too, has rights. Confronting her drunken husband and the dog, she makes one last bid for freedom that might finally set her free.