This film is followed by a prerecorded Q&A.

In modern day Manila, citizens are dying every day, their deaths a consequence of President Rodrigo Duterte’s pledge to end drug trafficking in the Philippines at any cost. This remorseless promise has set off a wave of extrajudicial killings since Duterte’s election in 2016—more than 20,000 men, women and children were killed in Duterte’s first two years alone.

Alyx Ayn Arumpac’s film reframes the horrors of Duterte’s war on drugs through the myth of the Aswang—a shapeshifter common in Filipino folklore that preys on humans, brutally and senselessly. The film brings the creature to life, surveying the carnage left in its wake: a worker sweeps blood down the street; a six-year-old boy fends for himself while his mother sits in jail; funeral homes fill with corpses. Traveling through neighborhoods and revealing the cruelty and corruption of drug enforcement police, Aswang explores the devastating toll the drug war has taken in Manila. To those who have lost their loved ones and suffered under Duterte’s bloodshed, the Aswang is everywhere.

Audience Partner