Joel Toledo

Filmmaker John Torres describes his childhood and discusses his father's infidelities.

Basically an artist is also a terrorist, the protagonist thinks in an unguarded moment. And if he is a terrorist after all, then he might just as well be one. Not an instant product, but an experimental feature in which diary material is brought together to form an intriguing puzzle.

"Philippine Bliss" tells the tale of six modern-day Filipinos living in a single neighborhood, a housing project called B.L.I.S.S., started by the former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos during the Martial Law era. These people, whose names allude to familiar characters from Jose Rizal's novels, narrate their private yet vivid stories of loss, longing, and Third World despair, all intersecting in a public arena that is their packed community. Theirs are lives seen with an oftentimes comic eye, unabashedly bound by a wild and brimming sense of Filipino hope.