Description

Audience Award (Documentary), 2012 Hawaii International Film Festival
Official Selection, 2012 Busan International Film Festival
Official Selection, 2013 Santa Barbara International Film Festival

After over a decade in the United States, guitarist Florante Aguilar returns to the Philippines in search of the music of his late father’s generation: the gentle serenades known as harana. Today, these songs are known amongst Filipinos as the romantic music sung by men outside the windows of their would-be lovers. But Aguilar and director Benito Bautista (Boundary, SDAFF ’12) want to know more: the spirit of forgotten creative communities which hold the wellspring of a mode of love as relevant today as ever.

On farms and in the streets of Cavite, Aguilar and Bautista find Celestino, Felipe, and the aptly-named Romeo, brought together for neighborhood jam sessions that might just spark a musical renaissance. Not bad for 60- and 70-year-olds who decades ago learned to sing not from any academy, but from the tumultuous school of courtship. Filled with classic songs and teeming with romantic fervor, HARANA conjures history from the fields and spellbinds audiences young and old. –Brian Hu

Co-presented by Filipino American National Historical Society – San Diego, PASACAT, Samahan Filipino American Performing Arts & Education Center

Director's Bio

Filmography:

2006: The Gift of Barong: A Journey from Within
2011: Boundary

Credits

Featuring: Felipe Alonzo, Celestino Aniel, Romeo Bergunio
Writer: Florante Aguilar, Benito Bautista
Producer: Florante Aguilar, Fides Enriquez
Assistant Director: Emma Francisco

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