The Poor Self-Image; A film festival challenges old Western stereotypes.(Cinemalaya)

Byline: Jessica Zafra

Two white Europeans are taking photos of human scavengers in a Manila garbage dump. It's an image that has come to define the Philippines, indeed many poor nations, in the eyes of the rich. But then, as the visitors move in to take a picture of a very young scavenger, he puts his hand up. He rummages around and finds a Styrofoam food container, which he empties and holds up to reflect the sunlight onto his face. Then he gives the thumbs-up to shoot. This teaser for Cinemalaya, a recent festival of independent Philippine film, captures its spirit: you think you know the Philippines? Well, let me straighten you out.

Tales of long-suffering victims are a staple of mainstream Philippine movies, and of Western movies about poverty in the developing world. But not of this year's Cinemalaya grantees. Instead of stereotypes, these films draw from real life, partly because they need to. Now in its third year, Cinemalaya offers grants equal to about $11,000 to 10 new filmmakers, who must shoot within a five-month period. Sometimes they use nonactors, real people who accept poverty and hardship as facts of life. Their attitude is: yes, we're poor, now get on with it. A film titled "Tribu" depicts the disconcertingly banal lives of young gang members in Tondo, a Manila slum that harbors more than 100 gangs. Filmmaker Jim Libiran, a broadcast journalist who grew up in Tondo, portrays the typical day of a gangster: bantering with parents, queuing up for water at the neighborhood pump, walking a girlfriend to the bus stop as she heads off for the midnight shift at a call center, and preparing for battle. Critics questioned the calm with which the gangsters headed off to fight, but Libiran drew on real experience. The film stars members of six rival gangs, or "tribes," who showed up at a casting call fully armed. Trust-building exercises were ...