Counter-Archives of a Film Guerrera
A Retrospective of Sari Dalena’s Cinema
𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫-𝐀𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐅𝐢𝐥𝐦 𝐆𝐮𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐫𝐚: 𝐀 𝐑𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐚𝐫𝐢 𝐃𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐚’𝐬 𝐂𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐚 runs from March to May 2026 across multiple sites: University of the Philippines Film Institute, Mowelfund Film Institute , UP Mindanao, The Green House Cinema, MSU IIT Center for Culture and Arts ,MSU Tawi-Tawi College of Technology and Oceanography Department of Literary and Cultural studies and Office of Creative Works.
The retrospective opens on March 6 at the UPFI Film Center with Memories of a Forgotten War (2001) and Cinemartyrs (2025), timed with the 120th anniversary of the Bud Dajo massacre, a subject both films confront. An accompanying exhibit, Notes Toward a Guerrera Cinema, runs March 28–April 7 at the UPFI Ishmael Bernal Gallery, conceived as a “working room” that brings viewers close to process—drafts, tools, artworks, and traces that shaped the films.
The program marks Women’s Month with a sustained look at artist and UPFI professor Sari Dalena’s 30+ years of independent filmmaking—documentary, hybrid, and experimental works shaped by testimony, return, and the hard work of making images speak when official history falls silent. The curatorial text frames these films as “counter-archives”: cinema that tests what can count as evidence when women’s labor, risk, and memory are pushed to the margins.
Dalena is a CCP Thirteen Artists Awardee, a Fulbright scholar with an MFA in Film Production from New York University, and an Asian Cultural Council Fellow. Her early 16mm shorts received prizes from Gawad Urian and the Gawad CCP Para sa Alternatibong Pelikula at Video. She won Best Picture and Best Director at Cinema One Originals for Ka Oryang, while her Cinemartyrs received a Best Director award at Cinemalaya. Her films have screened widely at major festivals and international screenings, including MoMA Documentary Fortnight and the International Film Festival Rotterdam.With thanks for support from Cinemalaya, CineFilipino, Unitel, TV5, CinemaOne Originals, Women of Malolos Foundation, Inc., and Gilda Cordero-Fernando. Venue-specific schedules will be posted by each partner site.
PART ONE
April 15, 2026
(Wednesday)
5 PM – 8 PM
Dengcar Theater (MOWELFUND Center)
•Sari Saring Pinay
•Bullet Days
•Kamikaze (Divine Wind)
•Asong Simbahan
•Mumunting Krus
•Puting Paalam
Conversation with Joanne Cesario
PART TWO
April 22, 2026
(Wednesday)
5 PM – 8 PM
Dengcar Theater (MOWELFUND Center)
•Guerrera
•Jamming On An Old Saya
To register, please click the link below.
https://forms.gle/nBZgLqyd2kMKGNWJ7
