Perfumed Nightmare (1977) + Surprise short

In Perfumed Nightmare, the debut feature of director Kidlat Tahimik, widely regarded as the father of independent Filipino cinema, Tahimik stars as a Filipino jeepney driver who wants to emigrate to America to become an astronaut. A mockumentary-essay-film-cum-travelogue, Perfumed Nightmare lacerates colonial ideology with Tahimik’s sharp humour and imaginative critique of America and its capitalistic fetishisation of progress. Susan Sontag writes, “Perfumed Nightmare makes one forget months of dreary moviegoing, for it reminds one that invention, insolence, enchantment – even innocence – are still available on film.”

Kidlat Tahimik’s work examines how colonisers subjugate Indigenous populations by destroying their traditions and mythologies in favour of a Western hegemonic idea of being. Here, Tahimik favours deconstructing the American dream offered by ‘progress’ and shatters the idea that migrating to the West offers a ‘better’ way of life. 

The film will be preceded by a Surprise Short film.

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