The third of Adrian Mendizabal’s essay for his ArtsEquators fellowship, here’s how history is presented through cinema, and the importance of presenting it with the ethics and power of liberatory memory work.
Introduction
In cinema, memory and history have always been intertwined with filmic practice. Since the early days of documentary filmmaking, such as the works of the Lumière brothers, cinematic language has stood at the intersection of multiple forms: textual, visual, auditory, and performative. At its core lies the persistence of vision—the film acting as documentary evidence of the past.
However, this modality of cinema is continually challenged by the very medium itself. While cinema’s persistence of vision preserves a semblance of reality, it is dialectically undermined by montage, which disrupts and reshapes its supposed realism. This contradiction raises crucial questions about how cinema can capture historical narratives and memory while reshaping them.
To address these challenges, it is essential to examine how cinema can move beyond its inherent contradictions, embracing the potential of film to not only document but also transform historical narratives. This requires a shift from a fixed, linear understanding of history toward a more fluid, dynamic engagement with the past, acknowledging the complexities of memory, representation, and power. As we explore these tensions, we can begin to see how cinema’s role in historical representation can be expanded, offering new possibilities for understanding and reshaping the narratives that shape our collective memory.
This leads us to consider another critical avenue for engaging with history and memory: the archives—repositories dedicated to the long-term preservation and access of non-current records and materials. Cinema and archives intersect at key junctures: when cinematic works are preserved in film archives and when cinema itself incorporates archival materials into its form. This essay will dwell on the latter: when cinema uses the archival in creating filmic works.
Memory Work Defined
Thus, we arrive at the intersection of cinematic and archival practices, where memory work in the audiovisual medium emerges. Memory work occurs when filmmakers actively engage with archival records in the creation of cinematic works or when archivists engage with audiovisual records in ways that extend beyond the confines of their professional duties. The key phrase here is “above and beyond,” signifying efforts that transcend the boundaries of traditional roles or established rules.
Archival consciousness is the first essential quality of memory work. It involves recognizing that archives are not merely repositories or record centers but contested spaces of history and practice. A filmmaker engaged in memory work is acutely aware of the medium and format of their sources. For instance, in Lav Diaz’s Evolution of a Filipino Family (2004), there is a deliberate and conscious integration of archival materials to explore historical narratives.
Historical consciousness is the second critical quality. It deepens the relationship between archival and film practices by situating both within the broader context of a dynamic changing world. This consciousness acknowledges past events as integral to shaping the present and informing future endeavors. Historical consciousness subjects the processes of archiving and filmmaking to ongoing inquiry, ensuring that these practices remain reflective of the past and adaptive to present and future challenges.
Collective consciousness forms the third quality, emphasizing a shared world where rights and welfare intersect with practices and customs. It elevates memory work beyond archiving or filmmaking by embracing a commitment to the common good and certain advocacies. Engaging in memory work for human rights, SOGIE rights, or other causes reflects an awareness of the archival and historical significance of these struggles. It is an act of solidarity, recognizing memory work as a collective and transformative endeavor.
Liberatory Memory Work Defined
Liberatory memory work introduces a fourth essential quality: class consciousness. This perspective acknowledges that the fundamental contradictions driving societal and economic transformations stem from the dialectical tension between the working class and imperialism. What distinguishes liberatory memory work from broader types of memory work practices is its explicit stance against imperialism and its commitment to challenging structural inequalities.
The concept of liberatory memory work has its roots in cause-oriented memory practices defined by Michelle Caswell in her book Urgent Archives. Caswell emphasizes the importance of creating archives that amplify the voices of marginalized communities, particularly indigenous peoples whose heritage is often at risk of erasure. Her framework advocates for a slow, deliberate approach to archival work, ensuring ethical practices that prioritize the careful processing and representation of these voices.
However, this deliberate approach often clashes with the political urgency inherent in memory work. For example, Filipino memory workers have faced immense pressure to counter the resurgence of authoritarianism under Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s presidency. Despite their efforts to expose historical lies and preserve the memory of past struggles, these initiatives have encountered the sobering reality that public perceptions remain largely unchanged. This tension underscores a critical challenge in liberatory memory work: balancing the ethical imperatives of careful archival practices with the immediacy demanded by political crises.
Radical Hope and the Persistence of Memory Work
Despite challenges and defeats, memory work must persist out of necessity. In his book In Defense of Lost Causes, Žižek argues for the necessity of radical hope, especially in the face of political failure or perceived futility. For memory workers in Southeast Asia, the persistence of their efforts to reclaim and represent histories of violence, injustice, and resistance can often seem fruitless, especially in the face of political opposition or indifference from broader society. The election of Bongbong Marcos Jr. in 2022, for instance, represented a direct challenge to the work of memory activists and filmmakers who sought to challenge the historical revisionism associated with the Marcos dictatorship.
Despite these setbacks, Žižek’s call for a resurgence of radical hope is an important framework for understanding the radical confidence of liberatory memory work. It suggests that even when memory projects appear to fail, the act of remembrance itself can catalyze change, reawaken critical thinking, and ultimately shift societal consciousness. In the context of Southeast Asian audiovisual memory work, this radical hope is evident in the ongoing efforts to challenge dominant narratives, whether they be related to colonialism, authoritarianism, or other forms of oppression.
Audiovisual Work as Liberatory Memory Work
Thus, we arrive at a critical juncture in defining liberatory memory work within the context of audiovisual practice. For audiovisual work to embody liberatory memory work, it must adhere to the following principles:
- Engagement with the Archival Form: The work incorporates and references archival materials as an integral part of its production process, recognizing their significance in constructing narratives.
- Archival and Historical Consciousness: It demonstrates an acute awareness of the origins, medium, and context of archival or historically themed materials, embedding these within a broader understanding of the dynamics of historical change.
- Commitment to Collective Remediation: The work critically engages with historical pains, addressing general or specific issues faced by marginalized sectors, with the intent to advocate for justice and collective reparation.
- Anti-Imperialist Stance: It explicitly acknowledges class contradictions as the driving force of history and adopts an anti-imperialist perspective to confront systemic oppression and inequality.
This framework provides a foundation for analyzing and characterizing audiovisual practices across Southeast Asia, offering a lens to evaluate their potential as tools for liberatory memory work.
Practices of Audiovisual Memory Work in Southeast Asia
To delve deeper, it is essential to explore how these practices intersect with the socio-political landscapes they emerge from, particularly in a region marked by colonial histories, authoritarian regimes, and grassroots resistance. By situating audiovisual practices within these contexts, we can better understand their capacity to amplify marginalized voices, confront historical erasures, and foster collective agency.
Audiovisual materials—films, documentaries, videos, and photographs—are powerful tools for representing history and memory. They not only document events but also capture the emotional and subjective experiences that shape historical moments. However, these materials are not without risk; they can be manipulated, distorted, or exploited, raising critical ethical concerns.
A central challenge lies in ensuring that the use of moving images serves the communities being represented, rather than commodifying their experiences for external consumption. This calls for a deeper examination of practices within film and moving image production, particularly in the context of Southeast Asia.
Our task, then, is to refine the conceptual framework of liberatory memory work by critically analyzing these practices. The goal is to assess whether such audiovisual materials and practices truly embody a liberatory form, aligning with principles of ethical representation, historical accountability, and social justice.
A. Archival in Film & Film as Archival
In Southeast Asia, audiovisual works often engage with the archival as a reference point for historically and politically conscious memory work. A notable example is Lav Diaz’s Evolution of a Filipino Family (2004), which incorporates archival footage of the Martial Law era in two significant ways: (1) it situates its narrative within the periodized historical context of Martial Law; (2) it incorporates footage from the AsiaVisions Audiovisual Collection, deepening the film’s historical indexing of the era.
Another category of films that prominently engage with historical contexts is People’s Cinema. These works, often created by film and media collectives associated with mass movements, document the struggles of the people. Filipino films such as Sabangan (1983), No Time for Crying (1986), Arrogance of Power (1983), and Beyond the Walls of Prisons (1987)—featured on Cinemata.org—are prime examples. As explored in Rosemarie Roque’s study of People’s Cinema (Sineng Bayan), these films are described as films that “Tangan nila ang isang ideolohiyang bayan (“people’s ideology”), isang uri ng ideolohiyang mapagpalaya (“liberating type of ideology”). […possesses people’s ideology, a liberating type of ideology.]” (Roque, 2018, p. 75). These films embody the trope of cinema as an archival medium by documenting historical events that are deeply relevant to the lived experiences of the people. Over time, they remain significant by engaging with contemporary issues in the Philippines, particularly its semi-feudal and semi-colonial economic structures. By taking a definitive stance against imperialism, these films transcend mere documentation, emerging as powerful examples of liberatory memory work.
Conversely, there exists another subset of films that deploy archival materials not to liberate or empower sectors of society but to distort and undermine historical truths. These works often serve the interests of the powerful, misrepresenting historical narratives for propaganda or aesthetic purposes. Filipino films like Maid in Malacañang (2022), Martyr or Murderer (2023), and, to an extent, Whammy Alcazaren’s Fisting: Never Tear Us Apart (2018), utilize archival footage and/or historical actualities to make a new interpretation of history—either to reinforce authoritarian propaganda or to promote “art for art’s sake” ethos of the archive detached from political accountability.
B. The Archival as Aesthetic Counterpoint
Another approach to audiovisual memory work involves using the archival as an aesthetic counterpoint. This practice is often embraced by experimental filmmakers who focus on the materiality of the medium, leveraging the aesthetic qualities of archival formats such as celluloid and magnetic tape to push the boundaries of filmic expression.
Filipino filmmakers like Gym Lumbera, John Torres, and Khavn Dela Cruz exemplify this approach. Gym Lumbera’s films, such as Taglish (2012) and Anak Araw (2012), explore the interplay between archival textures and storytelling. John Torres’ People Power Bombshell: The Diary of Vietnam Rose (2016) and Lukas Niño (2013) similarly engage with archival material to deconstruct traditional narratives, while Khavn Dela Cruz’s recent experiments with celluloid filmmaking, such as Rizal’s Makamisa: Ang Pantasya ng Hiwaga (2024) and National Anarchist: Lino Brocka (2023), use archival aesthetics to challenge and redefine visual storytelling.
By employing the archival as an aesthetic counterpoint, these works transcend conventional narrative forms, constructing alternative visualities that offer new dimensions to storytelling. This approach not only experiments with the medium but also aesthetically engages history, reshaping how historical memory is visualized and experienced.
C. Platform Curation as Memory Work
The rise of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to the presidency in 2022 posed significant challenges to memory workers in the Philippines, particularly those dedicated to documenting the atrocities of the Marcos dictatorship. In response to this political regression, some Filipinos turned to “rogue archives,” creating unofficial collections and counter-narratives to resist the historical revisionism propagated by the Marcos family and their allies.
These rogue archives were often assembled in an atmosphere of urgency, driven by the need to provide immediate access to historical records and contest the distorted narratives being actively promoted. While this urgency was vital in responding to the immediate political crisis, it also introduced ethical concerns. Rushed archival efforts risk producing incomplete or inauthentic representations of history. Moreover, as many memory workers have observed, even the most meticulous archival initiatives often struggle to alter deeply ingrained public beliefs, particularly when those beliefs are reinforced by powerful political and media systems.
Amid these challenges, innovative practices in platform curation have emerged as a vital form of memory work. Cinemata.org, for instance, employs an open-source platform to facilitate the free distribution of audiovisual archival materials, fostering international solidarity across Southeast Asia and the Pacific. This approach highlights how digital tools can expand the reach and impact of memory work by making archives more accessible and participatory.
The COVID-19 pandemic further reshaped how memory work is conducted in contemporary times. With traditional venues like film festivals and theatrical screenings disrupted, cause-oriented groups like Concerned Artists of the Philippines have turned to digital platforms like Facebook to build new public programs that feature audiovisual archival materials. These initiatives enable greater interaction with audiences, bypassing traditional gatekeeping structures and reimagining how memory work can engage with broader communities.
D. History as Artistic and Performative Practices
In Southeast Asia, key works of audiovisual memory have tackled the region’s fraught historical and political pasts, employing inventing methods to recount, interrogate, and reclaim histories. Prominent examples include Rithy Panh’s The Missing Picture (2013) and Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing (2012), both of which explore memory and trauma through the medium of cinema, transforming historical reflection into powerful acts of artistic and performative inquiry.
Rithy Panh’s The Missing Picture (2013) exemplifies how audiovisual memory work can preserve and reclaim traumatic histories. The film delves into the Cambodian genocide under the Khmer Rouge, a subject long suppressed in public discourse. Panh combines archival footage, hand-crafted clay figurines, and poignant voice-over narration to recount his childhood experiences during the genocide. This innovative blending of media creates an intimate, haunting portrayal of loss, survival, and the struggle for remembrance. By utilizing the moving image not only to document facts but also to evoke the emotional gravity of historical events, Panh demonstrates the unique potential of audiovisual media to safeguard memory.
Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing (2012) takes a radically different approach to memory work. The film invites perpetrators of Indonesia’s 1965-66 mass killings to reenact their crimes, resulting in grotesque, surreal performances that blur the boundaries between confession, denial, and self-aggrandizement. Through this performative method, Oppenheimer confronts the psychological and societal scars left by the killings and exposes the pervasive denial and impunity surrounding these events. The film’s ethical complexity lies in its unsettling exploration of the perpetrators’ complicity and the broader society’s role in perpetuating a culture of silence.
Another significant contribution is Amir Muhammad’s The Last Communist (2006), which employs a layered, multimodal approach to challenge Malaysia’s anti-communist rhetoric and historical revisionism. Through textual enmeshings, the film constructs a multitemporal and distinctive depiction of a society grappling with distorted histories.
Together, these films illustrate the liberatory potential of audiovisual memory work, particularly in contexts where histories have been erased, distorted, or forgotten. They highlight the power of the moving image to contest official narratives and provoke critical reflection, while also emphasizing the need for ethical rigor to avoid retraumatizing or exploiting the communities they represent.
Contradictions and Ethical Quandaries
A. Urgency vs. Ethical Deliberation
The tension between urgency and ethical deliberation is one of the key contradictions in liberatory memory work. While the need to document and preserve histories of oppression may seem urgent, especially in politically charged contexts, rushing the process can lead to unintended consequences. For example, in the case of rogue archives in the Philippines, the rush to counter the Marcos narrative sometimes resulted in fragmented or hastily compiled histories that may lack the context and complexity required for long-term societal change.
Furthermore, the urgency of memory work in the face of political crises can sometimes compromise the ethical commitment to ensuring that marginalized voices are represented with dignity. This is especially true when the archival work is done by external agents or institutions that do not share the same cultural and historical connections to the communities they aim to represent.
B. Representation and Power
Another ethical challenge lies in the question of who controls the representation of historical memory. In many cases, memory work is undertaken by individuals or institutions that are removed from the communities they aim to represent, raising concerns about the authenticity and accuracy of the narratives being constructed. This issue is particularly pertinent in the context of Southeast Asia, where historical narratives have been shaped by neocolonial powers, authoritarian regimes, bureaucratic capitalism, and other agents of power.
Ensuring that memory work is genuinely participatory, where communities are actively involved in shaping their representations, is a key ethical consideration. Without this participatory element, there is a risk of reinforcing existing power dynamics and perpetuating the very injustices that memory work seeks to address.
C. Privileging of Aesthetic Goals Over Liberatory Intent
A significant ethical concern in audiovisual memory work is the prioritization of aesthetic goals at the expense of its liberatory potential. This issue often arises in practices that use the archival as an aesthetic counterpoint, where the artistic rationale overshadows the responsibility of archival due diligence. When accuracy, context, and the ethical handling of archival materials are sacrificed for aesthetic purposes, the fundamental objectives of memory work are undermined.
One problematic tendency is the use of the “archival aesthetic” to evoke nostalgia. While nostalgia can be an engaging emotional device, it often relies on selective memorialization, romanticizing the past in ways that obscure historical complexities or injustices. This approach not only risks distorting history but also diminishes the critical and emancipatory aims of memory work. By retreating into sentimental idealizations, such practices can become counterproductive, reinforcing escapism rather than fostering meaningful engagement with history and its lessons.
True liberatory memory work demands a balance: while aesthetic considerations can enhance the accessibility and resonance of archival materials, they should never come at the cost of ethical integrity or the broader goal of empowering marginalized narratives and communities.
Beyond Liberatory Memory Work
The challenge of liberatory memory work lies not in rejecting past practices but in critically engaging with and learning from them. Films like The Missing Picture, The Act of Killing, and The Last Communist offer profound insights into how audiovisual media can reclaim and represent traumatic histories. However, they also underscore the need for caution and ethical responsibility in the practice of memory work. The crucial takeaway from these examples is that memory work should be a process of dialogue and reflection, not a unilateral effort to impose a fixed or monolithic historical narrative.
Future audiovisual memory work must prioritize participatory approaches, wherein communities play an active role in the creation and direction of memory projects. Such involvement ensures that the narratives presented are not only authentic but also grounded in the lived experiences of the people represented. This participatory model offers a more ethical engagement with history, as it directly incorporates the voices and perspectives of those most affected by the events being remembered.
Moreover, the future of liberatory memory work should embrace interactive and dynamic forms of media, such as digital archives or online platforms, which can facilitate ongoing engagement with history. These tools enable communities to create, preserve, and disseminate their narratives in real time, fostering a more inclusive understanding of historical memory.
However, for liberatory memory work to truly fulfill its potential, it must extend beyond the confines of cinema or archival work. Its reach must transcend the medium of the film itself, evolving into a broader and more sustained movement for social and political change. True liberation involves challenging the dominant economic and political systems that perpetuate inequality, violence, disinformation, historical distortion, and collective amnesia.
This broader process begins by reasserting the politics of collective organization—revitalizing the power of intergenerational memory shared by politicized artistic producers and the communities they serve. Only through this broader framework can memory work contribute to dismantling entrenched systems of oppression and building a more just and equitable society. The goal is to weaponize memory for a genuine cultural revolution.
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References
Roque, R. O. (2018). Artsibo at Sineng Bayan: Pagpapanatili Ng Kolektibong Alaala at Patuloy Na Kolektibong Pagsalungat Sa Kasinungalingan at Panunupil. Plaridel, 15(2), 71–112. https://doi.org/10.52518/2018.15.2-03roque
This essay was completed under the ArtsEquator Fellowship.
