‘Borrowed Land’: Poverty in Philippines

Matthew Westfall’s cool, incisive 51-minute video documentary “On Borrowed Land,” which screens tonight and Friday at 6:30 and 8:30 at Philippine Expressions, 8685 Wilshire Blvd., adds further testimony to the stultifying poverty that lies beneath what narrator Willem Dafoe calls a “thin veneer of democracy” in the Philippines.

In the wake of the unfulfilled promises of the Aquino government, Manila’s poor immigrants from the provinces remain squatters, with more than 50,000 living in “Reclamation,” a well-organized largely self-sustaining community built on dredged lands alongside Manila Bay but now the target of overseas developers who envision Manila as the next Hong Kong after 1997.

Westfall and his cameraman David Weisman calmly record hypocrisy and indifference on the part of the Establishment, yet they end on a note of hope, affirming their belief that the people who fueled the overthrow of Marcos will ultimately prevail.

“On Borrowed Time” on which Oliver Stone served as executive producer, screens again on Wednesday, Nov. 14 at 7:30 p.m. at USC’s Annenberg Auditorium. Westfall and Weisman will be present at all screenings, which will benefit the Tulong-Sikap Foundation, a Manila-based urban poor advocacy group.

Information: (213) 652-8869 or 559-9529; For the USC screening: (213) 737-1804 as well as 559-9529.

The recently restored 1937 film version of “The Dybbuk” screens Thursday through Nov. 20 at the Monica 4-Plex. As a record of Polish-Jewish culture, so soon to be all but eradicated in the Holocaust, this film of the S. Ansky play is invaluable and rich in ancient folklore and religious ritual, but it’s tough going. The actors perform as if they were onstage instead of on camera.

Information: (213) 394-9741.