A coincidence occurred just before my Zoom interview with Miko Revereza. I had recently bought a Super 8 film camera, a pre-owned Chinon 20P XL, which turned out to be the same camera that Miko used to shoot his first experimental short “Droga!” back in 2014.
“That camera is very special,” Revereza said as he tucked himself inside his office in Mexico City. “[With] that Chinon, you can rewind five seconds and then start filming over it, so you can create some interesting effects with that. You can have a fade in and start having these dissolves with that camera.” His giddiness about the camera is unsurprising. It was through this vintage hunk of gear that the Filipino immigrant director began his journey towards discovering his agency.
“I don’t have the agency of someone that has a US passport or of someone who has a Schengen passport,” Revereza relayed to me. “When I started making personal films, and specifically this film, it was with the prompt that I sort of created for myself. ‘How does an undocumented documentary filmmaker document themself?’”
A guerilla style and “shoot first, ask questions later” filmmaker, Revereza got his start in film while living in Los Angeles and getting an artist residency at the Echo Park Film Center. His influences range from avant-garde filmmakers like Jonas Mekas, to local experimental works from Mowelfund in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. However, no influence has left a more indelible mark on his craft than the experience of living in the United States as an undocumented immigrant for 26 years.
‘ ‘4’: ‘image’: ‘jcr:1ba701a0-baf4-4268-b376-dbb807cc7bbf’ ‘imageCaption’: ‘A still from “Nowhere Near,” an entry in the New York Film
His latest film, “Nowhere Near” tracks his final years in the US, his eventual return to the Philippines in 2019, and his lingering ruminations about having been powerless for years due to the systemic shortcomings within the immigration system. It’ll have its US premiere at the New York Film Festival this October, but he will only be available for a virtual Q&A since he can no longer go back to the country.
Revereza’s previous feature-length documentary, “No Data Plan” won him local and international praise, including the Gawad Urian Best Documentary award in 2020 and making it into BFI Sight & Sound’s “50 Best Films of 2019,” as well as CNN Philippines Life’s’ “Best Filipino Films of 2019” list.
Below, Revereza talks about “Nowhere Near,” a project that took him seven years of dedicated work (and more, considering his plans to publish it as a novel) and that has captured the radars of festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival, London Open City Festival, and the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
You shot your first film “Droga!” in Super 8 millimeter and “Distancing” in 16 millimeter. What drew you to starting out in analog and what did you learn from it that you still employ to your filmmaking to this day?
When I was in high school, I was into analog photography. I spent most of my time in the darkroom. So it’s always been a passion. When I started making films, it just made sense to work with analog formats. Also, I hand processed that film in a LOMO tank where the chemicals were, and I mixed it myself. That was a very satisfying process.’ ’11’: ‘image’: ‘jcr:c4d8f793-1cc3-40fd-b82a-1355ac2537df’ ‘imageCaption’: ‘”If you can see in ‘Nowhere Near,’ a recurring motif is double exposures that are dreamy. And that comes as a reference to analog filmmaking, specifically experimental 16 millimeter filmmaking, which employs that technique
I think maybe how that has carried on to the digital films that I’ve made, if you can see in “Nowhere Near,” a recurring motif is double exposures that are dreamy. And that comes as a reference to analog filmmaking, specifically experimental 16 millimeter filmmaking, which employs that technique often. In this case, I was thinking of the double exposure, or two images placed on top of each other, as a way to kind of fold a mat. They are like these composed double images.
You had a line in the film that went “It’s Spring 2017 and by the time this makes it to screen, Broadway might be a completely different landscape.” This line struck me because it meant that you were foreseeing the film was not going to be screened until some time.
That’s an interesting observation. It was spring 2017 when I made that shot on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, and at that moment I was just testing the camera and I had no film in mind. It was just images. Writing a voiceover of that image, having had a lot of distance timewise and geographically from it, and knowing that I can’t return to this place, I’m curious to know what that street looks like now. But I feel like it has probably undergone a lot of development and more gentrification of downtown L.A. That was kind of my thinking, this street will be different by the time this image gets to the screen.
‘ ’15’: ‘image’: ‘jcr:2bbbda9b-c00e-47ce-b84b-b627d58a0a38’ ‘imageCaption’: ‘“I approached this film sort of like editing a photo book, like you open a book then you flip through images.” Photo courtesy of MIKO
Once I wrote the text, it gave me the framework of what images to put with what narration. And it’s so interesting to think about it being a book. I’m a big fan of photo books. I approached this film sort of like editing a photo book, like you open a book then you flip through images. The sequencing doesn’t necessarily always have a narrative arc or chronology. A photo book can jump around much more freely. I looked at a lot of photo books as inspiration for how to sequence the edit of this film.
One of the lasting images that I remember was your lola drawing this rudimentary family tree sketched on a bank note. I was actually reminded of your own filmmaking style and how it’s so guerilla, diaristic, and just making do with the tools you already have. So I wanted to ask, to what degree did your family ever influence your filmmaking career?
They influenced it a great deal. In immigrant families, there’s an aspect of having to make it work no matter what. That’s interesting to me. Within my film practice I’ve always been interested in the idea that, no matter what, you have to make do with the resources that you have, it’s kind of like a migrant mentality. I wasn’t interested in finding the funds to make something that I don’t have the resources to. I was always interested in just filming with what resources I have available and being honest about the economy that I had.
‘ ’39’: ‘image’: ‘jcr:2330016d-797d-4d67-bfd7-3e7247d54809’ ‘imageCaption’: ‘In the film, Revereza recalls the Filipino culture of indebtedness,
You even actually joke about how your hand was being possessed while you were at the church with your lola. You said, “Why am I such a shitty cinematographer today?” and I thought that was really funny. I saw this as a different relationship between you as an editor and you as a cinematographer. Was it ever difficult to blend those two personas?
Well, I hate editing (Laughs). It’s part of the job that I wouldn’t hand over because it’s so personal, but if it was possible, I would just not edit. And then I would just leave it directly what comes out of the camera. With 16 millimeter film, I enjoyed that it can just be the film strip and there can be in-camera edits because I really don’t enjoy editing on the computer.
There was a frustration of looking at these images, but also with that frustration, a fascination of “why,” why did I film it so badly? What is the reason? So I watched this footage over and over again, seeing how it could be cut, how to fix it, and then so it’s just interesting to kind of just deconstruct it. That deconstruction became part of the film.
‘ ’40’: ‘image’: ‘jcr:581689f8-5ca1-4060-95fb-a286c5ad7ef0’ ‘imageCaption’: ‘When filmmaker Miko Revereza started making “Nowhere Near,” he
Is this film, and the novel you’re writing, in a way, you recapturing your agency?
I like that question. Maybe, or maybe it’s the process of discovering my agency. In the beginning of the film, it was the struggle of not having the agency to travel or to be a citizen of the place I live. So within our family, there’s just the frustration of being confined, to being without papers. And then throughout the course of the film, I’ve kind of discovered more and more.
The power of discovering your agency, your own self-determination, of creating your own path in the world, and not having to be confined to the bureaucratic and systemic things that are cast upon you.
The power of discovering your agency, your own self-determination, of creating your own path in the world, and not having to be confined to the bureaucratic and systemic things that are cast upon you. In that sense, yeah, there is a lot of hope in the film because it goes from the position of not having agency, but slowly there is this sense of building agency as a human being and in the world, to be able to cross borders.
I can’t help but tap into that Filipino mindset to root for you in these films, the same way we’ve rooted for underdogs and action stars throughout the history of Philippine cinema. I’ve read comments in your interviews and film clips online, and I see a lot of people saying how they’re rooting for you and that you’re an icon representing Filipinos abroad. Is this status something you ever ponder on?
Underdog like in a telenovela?
Exactly like a telenovela.
My lola leaves them on all the time and it’s just these true stories of people in difficult circumstances and then them transcending their circumstances. Is there a show like that?
All of them.
(Laughter)
My lola watches that and it’s super annoying. And then she’s crying by the end of each episode. Usually at the end there’s a voiceover talking about enduring this hardship and some sort of moral of the story. I hope I didn’t set out to portray the story of an underdog. Actually, I don’t even think about the audience that much.
One, I’m not documented in a legal sense or in a bureaucratic sense that allows me to function as a citizen of the state that I live in. Two, I’m making my own documents. So can the documents I made through the documentary, can they lead to becoming documented by the state? Will this somehow unlock the maze of bureaucracy if I go through the process of documentary? Can I solve the problem of being undocumented and finally have access to the things we’ve been excluded from?
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