Aswang

ASWANG is a poetically composed inquisition into Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s reign of terror that unleashed death squads in a so-called “war on drugs”. Invoking the Filipino mythology of the aswang, or evil shape-shifting spirits, director Alyx Ayn G. Arumpac takes the viewer on a journey through the lower-income communities of Manila that were most deeply affected by state violence.

Under immense state censorship, Arumpac’s first feature film bravely documents the crimes of the Philippine government against its own people, recognized by numerous international human rights organizations as crimes against humanity. ASWANG delves into the cross-fire of poverty, drugs, criminality, and government corruption, while defiantly centering the humane and emotional experience amid this trauma.