SYNOPSIS

Director｜Kyle Jumayne Francisco

Screenwriter｜Kyle Jumayne Francisco

Cast｜Jal Galang, Menggie Cobarrubias

Producer｜Carlo Enciso Catu

Cinematographer｜Neil Daza

Genre｜Drama, Queer

Length｜9min31s

Year｜2019

Dialogue｜Kapampangan

Subtitles｜English

Region｜Southeast Asia, Philippines

Production Company｜Yatu Film Productions, Santa Filomena Films, Null Studios

Synopsis

A dysfunctional father and son, one still coping from a loss, the other with a highly-stigmatized illness, are compelled to talk to one another to make ends meet and heal the wounds of their relationship.

Director Biography

Kyle Jumayne Francisco learned filmmaking through designing short films. He later on designed Kapampangan-period feature Aria (2018), which got him a Best Production Design award at Gawad Pasado, and iWant’s My Single Lady series (2020). He created his short film Whereabouts (2018) and was presented at film festivals Salamindanaw Asian Film Festival and Martovski Festival in Serbia. His latest short film Lines (2019) won Jury Prize at CineSpectra Film Festival, was presented at Cinemalaya and international queer film festivals such as Shanghai Queer Film Festival, Out Film CT and QFilms in the US, and is included in the lists of top Filipino short films of 2020 by CNN Philippines, Society of Filipino Film Reviewers, and Rappler. Kyle completed intensive film directing and scriptwriting courses under the Mowelfund Film Institute and Ricky Lee Scriptwriting Workshop. 

Director’s Statement

Gulis (Lines) treats HIV as a venue of discourse. I want to contribute to make the voices of persons living with HIV louder, with emphasis on those who reside in the provinces like Pampanga, who have been muted by the silence in their battle against stigma and discrimination rooted deeply in a culture of “let’s not talk about it”. I see it as a topic that should not be suppressed, but should serve as a call for communication. A call for communication is a call for a strong support system; and a strong support system is the start of healing. More than HIV, I will tell a story of a dysfunctional father-son relationship and how two lines of an HIV self-screen cassette bring back the once forgotten love and affection between the two. This film shows how communication plays a vital role in a family: that love can be channeled through communication, that communication itself is love. Gulis tells a story of how an illness heals a wounded relationship in a family back to its normal, functioning form.