Documenting the fate of Palawon

BANGALORE: Unlike most others, he does not want to cut his story (of evolving into a filmmaker) short. But his birth identity does not allow him to be anybody. Meet Filippino filmmaker Auraeus Solito, who was in the city recently to screen his film ‘Busong’ at the 4th Bangalore International Film Festival.His movie explores his identity. No, not in the biographical sense but depicts the current struggles of his tribes people in Southern Philippines. “Not making a long story short, my advent with stories began when I was a child,” he begins. “I was a very imaginative child. I saw things that were very mystical and held significance but of which I didn’t know yet. To make me understand, my mother started telling me bed-time stories...”He is among the first of the city-born members of his tribe, the Palawanon. The tribe is believed to be the descendants of the Shaman King. An indigenous tribe, they are considered to be one of the earliest settlers of the Philipines. “My mother narrated the stories she knew -- The mystical stories of her tribe. They fascinated me the most. I would re-tell these stories in school and my friends would listen to me intently because they thought these stories were fiction,” he recalls.After writing a thesis-play on his tribe in his final year of graduation, he decided to do something for his tribe, whose living was affected due to nickel mining in southern Philippines, near Palawan. He gave seven years of his youth to his tribe, to fight for their rights and to save the nature surrounding them. These years left a lasting impression on him. “I was a very stylish boy in college. After I went to Palawan, things changed a lot for me. It was not just my dressing style that changed, but the way I thought too. My friends were surprised,” he says.The docu-drama ‘Busong’ (Fate) is a result of the seven years he spent in his ‘native’ land. The movie reflects on the man-nature relationship and deals with the concept of fate or instant karma, he explains and adds,” What you do to nature, you do it to yourself.” He returned from Palawan after his uncle and cousins felt that his activism there might put him in danger. “I went to Palawan just after a music video I directed won the MTV Asia Award. The media was looking for me and I was  unavailable. When they found me, I wanted their help to tell the world about the mining issues and the injustice meted out to my people. They asked me to call back when somebody died. I was disappointed,” he says.  A television show called ‘Back to the Tribes’ convinced him to come on the show to narrate the woes of his land. It was reportedly one of the best episodes of the show. “It was magical. It was as if Mother Nature supported us in our fight. It was after this that I was asked to go back for my family heard that my life was worth ‘one pearl’, which meant that my life was in danger,” he says.“I continue to fight for what I believe in. But, I chose a rather metaphorical way to do it -- through my films,” he explains. While his film ‘Busong’ is set in present Palawan,  his next ventures ‘Delubyo’ (Deluge) and ‘Sumbang’ (Origin) are set in the past and future respectively.