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Cavite

Named for the city in the Philippines where most of it takes place, Cavite is essentially a two-character drama in which one character is never seen. Adam is a young man who was born in the Philippines but raised in San Diego. Returning to his native country for his father’s funeral, he arrives at the airport and his mother and sister (who still live here) are not there to meet him. The ringing of a cell phone that has been snuck into his bag holds the answer: They are being held hostage by the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, who claim responsibility for the death of Adam’s politically active father and will kill them as well if Adam doesn’t follow their instructions. For awhile, the demands posed by the mocking voice seem intended only to make Adam get in touch with the suffering of his native land, guiding him through the slums and squatter towns and chastising his failure to speak Tagalog and worship Allah. But the voice does have a goal for the young man, one that will force him to make a difficult moral decision.

Cavite is the product of two Filipino-American filmmakers, Neill Dela Llana and Ian Gamazon, working with the most minimal of resources: two hand-held cameras and a pair of plane tickets to the Philippines, with editing and post-production funded by the sale of the cameras on eBay after their return. Unable to find an actress willing to travel with them, they re-wrote the main character so that he could be played by Gamazon. That his acting skills are minimal doesn’t much hurt a film whose primary appeal is its documentary nature, a portrait of life at the bottom of a society where fundamentalist terrorism is a very real threat.