Film director and visual researcher Nash Ang produced independent documentaries, narrative films, and video poems spanning the Philippines and South Korea. These screen works investigated urgent social realities: the environmental vulnerability of canal communities, hazardous child labor in coastal salvage economies, disaster recovery after catastrophic typhoons, urban housing debt, and migrant isolation under emergency border regimes.
Within the creative screen industry, these projects circulated through festival competitions, public television broadcasts, and gallery exhibitions.
Through scholarly remediation, this creative filmography has been translated into an academic research corpus and prepared for open-access preservation by OBRA Incorporated. By archiving primary field observations, raw visual records, production ephemera, and director statements, the collection bridges creative media practice with social science inquiry. The archived materials provide qualitative primary sources across urban planning and riverfront displacement, non-extractive visual ethics, disaster recovery, housing debt, and diaspora labor mobility.
Remediated Film Collections
1. isKwater (2010)
Urban waterways often sit at the center of municipal sanitation drives and contested evictions. Focusing on an elderly woman living in a riverside stilt home during the launch of the Kapit Bisig para sa Ilog Pasig rehabilitation campaign in Manila, isKwater examines informal settlement life, riverfront pollution, and domestic resilience along the Pasig River. The documentary was developed at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, situated directly alongside these riverbank communities. The production received the Grand Prix at the ASEAN-Korea Multimedia Competition in Seoul, the South East Asian Student Documentary Award from the Goethe-Institut and UNESCO, and the Ani ng Dangal Presidential Award for Cinema.
2. Live to Dive (2011)
Informal waste economies in coastal cities often depend on hazardous, invisible labor. Set along the breakwaters of Isla Puting Bato in Tondo, Manila, Live to Dive observes eleven-year-old Totoy and ten-year-old Pirot as they plunge into the contaminated waters of Manila Bay to salvage scrap metal, plastic bottles, and sunken industrial debris. Produced for the GMA Public Affairs program Reel Time, the television documentary avoids sensationalized pity, centering the industrious agency, practical diving skill, and familial commitments that sustain young workers in marginal port environments. The broadcast won Best Director at the 13th Pyongyang International Film Festival, earned honors at the New York Festivals, and is archived in the George Foster Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia.
3. Water Ghetto (2011)
Internal displacement often pushes religious and regional minorities into the most fragile ecological zones of capital cities. Supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut Science Film Festival, Water Ghetto provides a direct cinema inquiry into an informal Muslim settlement built over the Estero de San Miguel canal directly behind Malacañang Palace in Manila. By observing residents like Fitumanan gathering discarded bottles on a styrofoam raft and Minombao coping with chronic health conditions without basic municipal services, the documentary records everyday survival beneath the immediate shadow of state power and imminent eviction. The film had its world premiere at the 3rd DMZ International Documentary Film Festival in South Korea.
4. My Raison D'être (2011)
Media depictions of waste scavengers frequently rely on voyeuristic spectacles of suffering. My Raison D'être offers an alternative approach to visual engagement, documenting an encounter with young waste pickers at the Smokey Mountain dumpsite in Tondo, Manila. Spoken through a Tagalog poem set to an acoustic guitar composition by Miguel Lorca, the video poem positions the camera at the children's eye level, reflecting on dignity, shared humanity, and quiet mentorship across social divides. The piece earned a Special Award at the ASEAN-Korea Multimedia Competition in Seoul and won the Grand Prize at the 1st Mirvac WA Short Film Festival in Western Australia.
5. Poor House (2014)
Escalating real estate values and predatory credit systems in East Asian metropolitan centers have produced deep generational precarity. Produced at the Korea National University of Arts, Poor House translates South Korea's house poor crisis, where households surrender their financial stability to service immense mortgage debts, into a social horror narrative. Following a young Korean couple touring an affordable Seoul apartment whose elderly landlord slowly transforms into a terrifying apparition, the film uses horror tropes to dissect the psychological dread and social claustrophobia of modern housing markets. The short screened at the Fanter Film Festival in Spain and the Chaktomuk Short Film Festival in Cambodia, with distribution on Cinehub Korea.
6. Rich Dead Poor Dead (2014)
Even the rituals surrounding human mortality are increasingly shaped by market pressures and social stratification. Shot as an unbroken continuous take inside an active South Korean funeral hall, Rich Dead Poor Dead adapts an unedited stage text by Changhyun Kim to examine class disparity within mortuary institutions. When an impoverished mourner is evicted from his deceased father's memorial altar room to accommodate a wealthy client, the conflict climaxes in the father's portrait being replaced with an image of a dog. The unbroken staging underscores how commercialization distorts basic human dignity in times of loss. The short screened at the ASEAN-Korea Film Festival and Cinehub Korea.
7. Seoul Mates (2014)
Transnational migration often creates complex interpersonal realities that exceed standard labor narratives. Co-produced by OBRA Incorporated and Samsong Entertainment as the first feature film co-production between the Philippines and South Korea, Seoul Mates stars Mimi Juareza and Korean actor Jisoo Kim. The story follows Alice, a Filipina transgender woman who journeys to Seoul seeking to reconnect with a former partner, only to find him settled into a new relationship. Encountering Joon, a young Korean musician grappling with social and artistic alienation on a Han River bridge, the two form an unexpected bond rooted in shared vulnerability. Nominated for Best Picture at the 10th Cinema One Originals Film Festival, the feature screened at Indiespace in Seoul and the Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival.
8. The Saviour (2015)
Moments of extreme crisis and self-destruction are often interrupted by the absurd intrusions of everyday reality. Staged along a winter coastline in Pohang, South Korea, The Saviour observes a solitary man stepping into freezing waves with the intention of taking his own life. Just as he prepares to surrender to the water, a petty thief snatches his shoes and wallet from the sand, forcing him into a naked pursuit that abruptly restores his instinct for survival. Captured in a single continuous camera take during sunset, the monologue drama explores despair, bodily vulnerability, and existential irony. The production earned Best Actor and Honorable Mention honors in the International Category at the 3rd Singkuwento International Film Festival in Manila.
9. Paraiso (2015)
Long after emergency disaster teams and global television crews depart, frontline communities face the prolonged reality of environmental recovery. Filmed in Tacloban one month after Super Typhoon Yolanda devastated Eastern Visayas in November 2013, Paraiso employs direct cinema observation to record child survivors navigating daily routines in the ruins. By focusing on mundane community acts like straightening bent nails, assembling temporary wooden frames, and playing among storm debris, the documentary avoids sensational disaster tropes to document quiet community resilience. The film received the Grand Prix at the 21st CineEco International Festival of Environmental Cinema in Portugal, the Special Festival Prize at the 15th Pyongyang International Film Festival, and an Ani ng Dangal Presidential Award for Cinema.
10. A Letter from My Mother (2016)
Material culture and traditional artisan craft offer profound frameworks for understanding grief and filial remembrance. Created in collaboration with Korean metal and mother-of-pearl craft artist Kim Hyun-ju, A Letter from My Mother explores situated beauty through everyday objects of mourning. The narrative follows a daughter packing her late mother's old townhouse, where the discovery of an unread letter brings immediate emotional reckoning. Paired with Kim's handcrafted REMEMBER najeonchilgi lacquerware urn, the video poem examines how tactile materials, heirloom spaces, and written letters preserve family affection across generations. The work was presented in Seoul alongside CRAFTREE gallery exhibitions.
11. No Man Is an Island (2018)
Hostage crises and political extremism in Southeast Asia are frequently analyzed from security perspectives, obscuring the claustrophobic human tensions of confinement. No Man Is an Island stages a mockumentary scenario with members of Tanghalang Banyuhay, following a South Korean religious cult leader and a sex tourist abducted in the southern Philippines by members of the Abu Sayyaf group. Recorded in a single continuous mobile shot, the narrative captures the chaotic cross-talk of Tagalog, Korean, and English as captors demand ransom and ideological submission, illuminating the psychological absurdity and precarity of cross-cultural hostage bargaining. The production received the Special Jury Award at the 1st Ulsan New Media Film Festival and honors at the Inquirer Indie Bravo Awards.
12. Korean Dream (2021)
Directed by Luce Scholar Melanie Arroyave from Rutgers University and produced by Nash Ang through PinoySeoul Media Enterprise, Korean Dream is a documentary investigating the lives of Filipino migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through five personal accounts spanning a university lecturer, a community radio host, an industrial factory laborer, an immigration counselor, and a migrant church pastor, the film records workplace discrimination, language barriers, and everyday adaptations under strict pandemic lockdowns.
Inquiries and Archival Access
For research inquiries, academic screenings, or collaborative access regarding these remediated film collections, please contact [email protected].
