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The Winnipeg Art Gallery – Qaumajuq will be home to a wide array of cinema from the Philippines and the Filipinx diaspora this weekend as part of the Kultivation Festival. The second annual SALA film showcase will feature everything from short films to feature lengths, locally made pieces to movies from around the world, each highlighting a unique perspective within the culture.
Despite the pressures of organizing a relatively new festival in Winnipeg’s cultural tapestry, Nathan Flores is leaning into a laid-back nature that helps to give SALA its identity. “’Sala’ translates to ‘the living room’ in Tagalog,” he explained in an interview on Morning Light, noting that he wanted to capture a blend of the importance of sharing art from the culture while also not putting too much pressure on it.
“A lot of us relate to that initial experience of being in our living room, watching movies, watching TV, whether that’s with my lola [or] my lolo,” Flores continues. “If you immigrated here from the Philippines to Canada or you’re Canadian born, we all kind of relate to that. We want to encapsulate the feelings we had growing when we sit in our living room and experience those memories.”
In selecting the films to be screened at SALA, Flores was mindful of the different perspectives that come not just from the different islands that make up the Philippines, but the different immigrant communities that live all over the world. “We just tell stories in a lot of different ways,” he says, “and that, I think, is ultimately derived from the home we grew up in and the things we see – as simple as the way the sun falls in our house or the way the noise is all sound or how loud things are.”
Although SALA is only in its second year, Flores already hears from people in Winnipeg’s Filipinx community about how it plays a vital role in sharing the culture. He shares stories from the showcase’s inaugural year of people showing up with their relatives decked out in clothes from their home country. “It was heartwarming to see those kinds of perspectives,” he says, adding that the showcase inspires local Filipinx filmmakers in turn to document their own experiences in this community.
“It shows that we’re here and we take up space and we have these stories to tell,” Flores says, noting that curating the showcase inspires his own filmmaking practice as well as that of others in the industry. “When you just see it in front of you and it’s playing in your hometown, there’s that inspiration. Even for me when I watch films, I’m like, ‘Wow, I’m inspired to follow a similar path and to tell these stories’ because there’s an importance and there’s almost like this obligation to tell these stories that you feel.”
The SALA film showcase starts at 4 p.m. at the Winnipeg Art Gallery – Qaumajuq on August 23. More information can be found at the art gallery’s website.