About Daang Dokyu

Referring to both “the docu way” and over a hundred years of Philippine cinema, Daang Dokyu was envisioned as a celebration of Filipino stories. First held in 2020 as a festival celebrating the hundred years since we started capturing the story of our islands and of the Filipino on film, Daang Dokyu was envisioned to be a significant gathering of the country’s community of documentarists for film and television, together with leading changemakers in the arts, culture, and education.

Plans for the festival go back to 2018, when filmmakers Jewel Maranan, Baby Ruth Villarama, Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala, and Monster Jimenez came together to mount the documentary side of the celebration of the centennial of Philippine cinema. Where documentaries were often marginalized or altogether excluded from formal Philippine cinema events, this contribution was a statement on its own. The four filmmakers also saw this as a culmination of previous efforts to gather a fledgling documentary community, one that could be traced back to many informal gatherings of emerging documentarists, from a Facebook group called Dokyupeeps that eventually grew to 313 members and became a virtual bulletin board, to three editions of the workshop "Reinvigorating Documentary Filmmaking in the Philippines", organized by the Goethe Institute and led by film historian and archivist (and curator of the first Daang Dokyu Festival), Teddy Co.

Making Philippine Documentaries Accessible Online

What started as a five-week film festival now expands into a continuing effort to put together a resource that can be used by audiences, educators and advocates who appreciate nonfiction: DaangDokyu.ph. Withe support of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and led by its project director Jewel Maranan, DaangDokyu.ph aspires to create ‘a home for Philippine documentaries’.

We now hold the largest active database of Philippine documentaries featuring classic and contemporary titles that present facts, narratives and perspectives dug from the historical vault of our nation’s recorded images, including a curated collection programmed to rethink monolithic views of our history and identity, and to go beyond familiar determinisms. Screeners are available for previews upon request from programmers, organizers, and educators.

Beyond making it possible to access a database, DaangDokyu.ph attempts to bring Filipino documentaries to a place where they function for a difficult world that actually needs them. In an effort to expand the distribution and audience network of documentary works, we also offer tools to connect filmmakers to curators, programmers, organizers, and educators, as well as resources for people to learn more about Filipino documentaries.

DaangDokyu.ph is for those who are looking to teach and share their advocacies. We aim to reach a broader audience for documentaries and offer “the docu way” as a means to take stock of how we are as a nation, how we got here, and where we are headed. It is for the young looking for their place and compass in the uncharted territory of the future of the Filipino in a time of social and ecological uncertainty. It is for anyone who laments that the Filipino is forgetful.