On this, the last evening of Filipino Heritage Month 2020, SHIRLEY CAMIA graces us with her new short, NOVENA.
Poet/Director SHIRLEY CAMIA on NOVENA: This short film, inspired by videos created by Filipinx artists of the diaspora who integrate their cultural heritage into their work, transforms one of my written poems into a multimedia artistic collaboration, incorporating elements of music, voice and motion design. The poem I have selected to adapt is titled, Novena, from my latest collection of poetry, Mercy (Turnstone Press, 2019). I chose this poem because it addresses grief, and provides a timely meditation in a challenging and uncertain time, where there is a collective grieving taking place around the world and people are searching for forms of healing.
Participants in Novena include a number of members of the Philippine diaspora, including Kat Estacio from Canada’s first and only all-women Filipina kulintang group, Pantayo, April Aliermo, from Hooded Fang and Phèdre, and my aunts, who immigrated to Canada from the Philippines in the 1970s and 1980s.
knife | fork | book 