About

'Two Filipinas, both victims of sexual abuse in varying degrees, yearn and search for a utopia where women can live without being sexually violated. By chance, they encounter a study by renowned anthropologist June Prill-Brett, which states that the Bontok of the Philippine Cordilleras has lived for eras without a term, nor concept, nor incidence, of rape. At last, a utopia, where the most heinous of gender crimes is unheard of. Or, is it? The documentary seeks to answer this question: in this world where the universality of women oppression is widely believed, how did a rape-less society ever become possible?' Philippine International Documentary Film festival

'Rape culture in post-colonial, post-modern Philippines is rampant and unabated. Here we are, Filipinos patronizing hypersexuality and women commodification in mass media, without realizing that 12 hours away by road, the indigenous Bontok Igorot of the Philippine Cordilleras has (or, had) a sex culture that is rooted in utmost respect for women and their genitalia. Igorot culture, since the Spanish Colonial Era of the Philippines, has always been taught to Filipino children as an "inferior" culture. For centuries since the Spanish aversion for the Igorot, many Filipinos held the same ill thought toward these indigenous highlanders of the Philippine north. Up until the current decade, not a few Manila millennials would ask whether the Igorot has tails, or whether the Igorot eats humans, or whether the Igorot lives like a monkey atop trees. The film shatters these generations-old misbeliefs. For it is the Igorot, the Bontok Igorot, which is the first to be documented to have lived with a rapeless culture that highly respects the women of their society.' Lester Valle

Ages 18+