Nowhere Near
A FILM BY Miko Revereza
PRODUCTION GRANT - SPRING 2020
Nowhere Near is a poetic memoir exploring stateless identity through the lens of an exile returning to an estranged homeland. The film begins with an investigation into my family curse - a curse that followed us for generations, rooted in the soil of my grandmother’s coastal province of Pangasinan. My ancestors had once ruled the land they inherited from Spanish colonizers. It is a land still bearing the remnants of colonial violence - first from Spain, then America, then our own onto each other.
My grandma likes to tell the story of MacArthur and the US troops landing at her local beach. She brags, that just down the front steps of her ancestral home. The American encampment stretched as far as her eyes could see. There was a big tent that functioned as a ballroom and bar, it was carpeted and there was a jazz symphony orchestra, is how she describes it. Her older sisters and cousins would wander there to go dancing. Even today there is a rotting concrete slab on that plot of land that the Americans left behind. I am looking for that plot of land for answers it might still contain. Look for the concrete slab she says.
This wandering psychogeographical journey encapsulates the seeming impossibility of returning home. I am making this film because through the transformative process of filmmaking. I believe I can lift the curse from my family and bridge our disconnection through borders.