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Official Selection PIFF 40

Ma’Rosa

Directed by Brillante Mendoza

Philippines • 2016 • 110 mins. • In Filipino, Tagalog

Showtimes & Past Screenings

In the slums of Manila, you pay the police, or you go to jail, if not your grave. Based on true events, Mendoza’s film mixes drama and documentary-like scenarios to tell the story of Ma’Rosa, a shopkeeper who helps make ends meet by selling small quantities of drugs under the counter. When the police arrest her and her husband, their children are forced to pay a high price for their release. A sometimes wry dispatch from the war on the poor, Ma’Rosa, this year’s Philippine Oscar submission, examines the price of survival in a society governed by corruption and violence.

Reviews: Hollywood Reporter, Variety, RogerEbert.com

Interview: Interview with Brilliante Mendoza at Fandor Keyframe

Filmography: Trap (2015), Sapi (2013), Thy Womb (2012), Captive (2012), Grandmother (2009), Kinatay (2009), Summer Heat (2006)

Appears in: 40th Portland International Film Festival, PIFF XL: Masters

The Northwest Film Center recognizes and honors the Indigenous peoples of this region on whose ancestral lands the museum now stands. These include the Willamette Tumwater, Clackamas, Kathlemet, Molalla, Multnomah and Watlala Chinook Peoples and the Tualatin Kalapuya who today are part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and many other Native communities who made their homes along the Columbia River. We also want to recognize that Portland today is a community of many diverse Native peoples who continue to live and work here. We respectfully acknowledge and honor all Indigenous communities—past, present, future—and are grateful for their ongoing and vibrant presence.