Turumba

Director: Kidlat Tahimik

1983 / 94min / 16mm

The manufacture of paper mache figurines, traditionally tied to a festival that lends its name to Tahimik’s slyly funny docufiction depicting the creeping westernization of the Filipino village of Laguna, becomes big business when one family, inspired by a visiting German entrepreneur, starts a mini-factory for export of the baubles, cranking out 25,000 souvenir Olympic-themed mascot Waldi dachshunds to ship off to the 1972 Munich Olympics. “Unfolds in a gradual and deceptively deadpan style… [Has] an insinuating, almost offhanded humor that by no means undermines the seriousness of the villagers’ plight.” —The New York Times

16mm print courtesy of Les Blank Films