Killings

by Joseph Mangat

experimental short, 2018, 10 minutes

A brutal glimpse at President Duterte’s failed drug war in the Philippines, the film reenacts a series of vigilante killings. Inspired by Elephant, Alan Clarke’s 1989 film about the violent killings happening in Northern Ireland, Patayan similarly uses no narrative or characterization only focusing on the act of killing. The film’s unsentimental and detached look at the killings mirrors the widespread apathy for the victims and questions the impunity by the Philippine government.