Tuli

Philippinen, 2006
Length
113 minutes
Director
Auraeus Solito
Cast
  • Desiree del Valle
  • Vanna Garcia
  • Carlo Aquino
  • Bembol Rocco
  • Eugene Domingo
  • Luis Alandy

Content

In remote barrios of the Philippines, traditional circumcision rites are still carried out on young boys. Daisy‘s father, specialized in these procedures, often takes out his unhappiness with his life on his daughter by forcing her to remove the little boys’ foreskins. In order to get back at her father, Daisy flaunts her love affair with another woman. Worse, she decides to get pregnant by the only boy in town who is not circumcised.

Courage to stand up for one’s rights
Auraeus Solito first made his mark in international film circles with ANG PAGDADALAGA NI MAXIMO OLIVEROS (THE BLOSSOMING OF MAXIMO OLIVEROS), a film about a gay boy’s coming to terms with his life. When the time came to translate TULI onto the screen, Digital Viva producer Vincent del Rosario instantly thought of asking Solito to do the job. “He has a unique grasp of the gay sensibility of Filipinos,” says Vincent. “I was very sure he would be able to capture the pain that homosexuals have to endure every day. They lead very difficult lives, especially in the provinces, where family life revolves around a usually dictatorial patriarch like Ka Malteng in TULI and it takes a lot of guts to stand up for one’s rights, like Daisy does when she decides to get pregnant and like Nanding, who refuses to be circumcised just for the sake of conforming to tradition.” Solito was flattered to have been asked to direct the prize-winning script. “Tradition is very important to the Filipinos,” he says. “These old-fashioned mores still govern life in the provinces. Flores used these as the anchor for the story of Daisy and I was very happy that I got the chance to put on the screen how these affect the lives of young Filipinos who have discovered freedom and are determined to assert their new beliefs. I also feel very fortunate to have been able to put together a cast of excellent performers who not only exceeded my expectations in their portrayals, but also endured difficult location shoots, which I was determined to use to capture the beauty of the Philippine countryside.” Desiree del Valle as Daisy, Vanna Garcia as Botchok and Carlo Aquino who plays Nanding are three of the Philippines’ most talented young actors.

Rated X
Director’s statement

Jimmy Flores, the writer, was a classmate of mine in the animation filmmaking workshop at Mowelfund Film Institute, where I made my first short film. He asked me to direct his first screenplay since other directors were telling him to rewrite it.

When I read the script, I really loved it and decided to do it as is. It is my ode to old Filipino films set in the provinces – with a twist! When Jimmy was asked what he thought of my direction of his script, he gave the best answer a writer can say to his director’s work: “It’s as if he wrote it himself.” We rushed to have the film ready for the CineManila Film Festival. We finished the film in a month, but had a problem with the censors. It was rated X! I was shocked since there was nothing explicit in my film, just poetic eroticism. My film was edited so it could be shown to audiences 13 and older. I had to fight for my artistic rights and integrity so that the international jury of CineManila could watch the uncut version of TULI, and I succeeded. And TULI won Best Picture and I was named Best Director.

Gallery

Credits

Production company
Viva Films, Pasig City
Original title
Tuli