RIA

Quezon City, Manila. Ria - a young punk singer - and her sick adoptive mother Olga, live in Vachel Cave, a punk community of a run-down neighbourhood standing up to the property developers who have requisitioned the premises. A week before Vachel Cave is due to be demolished, demonstrations, vigilante activities and concerts multiply, as they are protecting their haven and fighting against these evictions. 

A product of the Filipino punk culture, Arvin Belarmino quickly chose to use his films to condemn the corrupt system that prevails in his country, and asserts the role of art in fighting the dominant ideologies. After his short film Radikals, with its many shifts in tones and its quirky world, the director returns to a more naturalistic setting. Ria is an ensemble film, built on carefully crafted characters, exploring the dynamics of a music band and the connections between the individual and the collective. Always opting for an impactful mise-en-scène, Ria seeks to reflect the subculture it depicts: vibrant colours, energetic, restless, grainy images, and other key aspects of punk culture, including music and dress codes. Ria is a raging cry against a system, embodied by an anti-authoritarian, anti-consumerist, and anti-patriarchal heroine.