The Kingmaker | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | [1] |
Written by | Lauren Greenfield [2] |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography |
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Edited by | Per K. Kierkegaard |
Music by | Jocelyn Pook |
Production companies |
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Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 100 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $352,274 [4] [5] |
The Kingmaker is a 2019 documentary film written and directed by Lauren Greenfield, featuring the political career of Imelda Marcos [6] with a focus on the Marcos family's efforts to rehabilitate the family's image and to return to political power, [7] [8] including her plans to see her son, Bongbong, become President of the Philippines, [9] [10] and the alliance that Bongbong and Imee Marcos established with Rodrigo Duterte in his bid to win the 2016 Philippine presidential election. [3] [11]
It debuted internationally in August 2019 at the 76th Venice International Film Festival, [12] and debuted in the Philippines on January 29, 2020. [13]
The Kingmaker was nominated as best documentary at the BFI London Film Festival and the Stockholm International Film Festival, and for the Checkpoints Award at the Bergen International Film Festival. It was nominated for four categories in the 2019 Critics' Choice Documentary Awards, eventually winning the award for Most Compelling Living Subject of a Documentary. It also received the Audience Award for Best Documentary Film at the 2019 Warsaw Film Festival.
Greenfield's exploration of Imelda Marcos's narrative takes on what The New York Times calls a "dialectic" approach, allowing Imelda to tell her narrative and slowly introducing opposing viewpoints as the movie progresses. [3]
The film is organically divided into two parts, following the chronology of the events of Marcos's life.
The first half focuses on Imelda's life from the time she became first lady of the Philippines in 1965, through the 21 years where she and her husband ruled the Philippines, until they were deposed and forced into exile by the 1986 People Power Revolution. [8] [14]
As described by IndieWire, the second half of the film "features survivors of her husband's declaration of martial law and focuses on the political comeback of the Marcos family," [6] focused on the ascension of her son, Bongbong Marcos, to increasingly prominent national posts. [15]
Aside from Imelda Marcos herself, other figures Greenfield featured in the documentary include Marcos' son, the vice-presidential candidate Bongbong Marcos; former Philippine President Benigno Aquino III; Vice president Leni Robredo who had defeated Bongbong Marcos in the 2016 Philippine vice presidential election; former Presidential Commission on Good Government head Andres D. Bautista; and Martial Law torture survivors including former Commission on Human Rights chair Etta Rosales, and journalist-screenwriter Pete Lacaba.
In numerous promotional interviews, Greenfield characterizes Imelda Marcos as the documentary's unreliable narrator. [2] [1] [10]
In various interviews, Greenfield says she did not know this was going to be the case. She went into the first interviews with Marcos without knowing what to expect. [2]
In an interview with Vox, [2] Greenfield recounts thinking Imelda was being "surprisingly candid" in her first interview, and that she first thought Marcos actually believed her own words. Greenfield only realized that some of Marcos's statements were "obviously untrue" once she did further research. In later interviews, the topics got to "really egregious things," which Greenfield says made it "really clear" Marcos was lying.
In an interview with Fortune, [1] Greenfield says:
She's a narcissist. I think she does believe her own story, but the self-serving, strategic story, too. I think that in the past, people have made the mistake of thinking she's delusional, and she kind of puts that out there, but I think it's very strategic. She says early on in the film, "People underestimate women, and sometimes that's useful." I think people have underestimated her, and that's made her only the more powerful and successful.
Greenfield recounts that Marcos was so effective that test-viewers who watched the interviews could not tell whether or not Marcos was lying. [2] So in order to make sure viewers understood that something Marcos was saying was untrue, Greenfield would intersperse interviews with people who knew otherwise, such as Martial Law torture victims and officials who investigated the Marcoses. This resulted in a narrative style which the New York Times described as "dialectic." [3]
Another method Greenfield used in order to show that Imelda Marcos is an unreliable narrator was to turn the interviews into instances of Cinéma vérité, showing that Marcos was making efforts to project a pre-planned image of herself. [2] One example prominently shown in early trailers shows how Marcos accidentally knocks over a glass picture frame, but doesn't acknowledge the fact even while a uniformed servant cleans the glass shards off the floor for her. [1]
Greenfield tells Fortune Magazine: [1]
I see that scene as showing how unstoppable she is. ... I think about it more like she breaks things and she's not even aware and lets other people clean up the mess. She doesn't even acknowledge it. She's telling her story about being friends with and courting all of the dictators of the 20th century, so she doesn't pay attention to the wreckage around her and the fact that other people have to deal with it.
The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August 29, 2019. [16] It also screened at the Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2019, [17] and the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2019. [18] The film was released in the United States in a limited release on November 8, 2019, by Greenwich Entertainment. [19] It was broadcast on Showtime on February 28, 2020. [20]
The Kingmaker made its Philippine debut on January 29, 2020, when it was shown for the first time at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). [21] Both Imelda and Bongbong Marcos were invited to the premiere but did not respond to Greenfield's invitation, [22] and two of President Aquino's sisters, Viel Aquino-Dee and Ballsy Aquino-Cruz, attended a later screening at the University of the Philippines Diliman on February 25, 2020. [23] It was later released on iWantTFC, the streaming platform of ABS-CBN, on May 15, 2020, [24] and made available to watch on demand starting August 1 of that year. [25]
On March 19, 2022, the original documentary premiered in the Philippines for free on YouTube with more than 500,000 views as of May 4, ahead of the May 9 elections. [26] The Tagalog dub and Tagalog subtitle version was released on March 30 which is also accessible in the official Evergreen Pictures YouTube channel. [27]
Five separate Tagalog-dubbed versions of the film with subtitled versions in Tagalog, Bisaya, Ilocano, Bicolano, and Hiligaynon premiered on the first week of April 2022 with a preceding announcement by Greenfield via Twitter. [28] They can all be accessed and downloaded for free in Evergreen Pictures' Vimeo [29] and official website of the Digital Museum of Martial Law. [30]
The documentary was also streamed in various local film festivals in the Philippines. [31]
The Kingmaker received critical acclaim and has a 97% rating from Rotten Tomatoes. The critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes reads, "The Kingmaker aims a disquieting spotlight at the private life of a divisive public figure – as well as the ways in which unchecked power seduces and corrupts." [32] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 based on 16 critics. [33]
The Kingmaker was nominated for numerous Best Documentary Awards, including the 2019 BFI London Film Festival, the 2019 Stockholm International Film Festival, the 2019 Bergen International Film Festival, the 2020 Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle Awards, the 2019 El Gouna Film Festival 2019, the 2020 Hollywood Critics Association Awards, the 2019 Philadelphia Film Critics Circle Awards, and the 2019 Warsaw Film Festival (which it won).[ citation needed ]
It was also nominated for four categories in the 2019 Critics' Choice Documentary Awards, eventually winning the award for Most Compelling Living Subject of a Documentary.[ citation needed ]
Greenfield also received a nomination at the 72nd Writers Guild of America Awards for Best Documentary Screenplay. [34] With this second WGA nomination, she became the first woman ever to achieve this honor.[ citation needed ]
Imelda Romuáldez Marcos is a Filipino politician. who was First Lady of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986, wielding significant political power after her husband Ferdinand Marcos placed the country under martial law in September 1972. She is the mother of current president Bongbong Marcos.
Ferdinand "Bongbong" Romualdez Marcos Jr., commonly referred to by the initials PBBM or BBM, is a Filipino politician who is the 17th and current President of the Philippines. He previously served as a senator from 2010 to 2016. He is the second child and only son of tenth President, kleptocrat and dictator Ferdinand Marcos and former First Lady Imelda Marcos.
Maria Imelda Josefa Remedios "Imee" Romualdez Marcos is a Filipina politician and former actress serving as a Senator since 2019. She is the daughter of Ferdinand Marcos and former first lady Imelda Marcos and the older sister of the current president, Bongbong Marcos. She previously served as governor of Ilocos Norte from 2010 to 2019 and as representative of Ilocos Norte's 2nd district from 1998 to 2007.
Juan Valentin Furagganan Ponce Enrile Sr.,, also referred to by his initials JPE, is a Filipino politician and lawyer known for his role in the administration of Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos; his role in the failed coup that helped hasten the 1986 People Power Revolution and the ouster of Marcos; and his tenure in the Philippine legislature in the years after the revolution. Enrile has served four terms in the Senate, in a total of twenty-two years, he holds the third longest-tenure in the history of the upper chamber. In 2022, at the age of 98, he returned to government office as the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel in the administration of President Bongbong Marcos.
Lauren Greenfield is an American artist, documentary photographer, and documentary filmmaker. She has published four photographic monographs, directed four documentary features, produced four traveling exhibitions, and published in magazines throughout the world.
Celestine Cruz Gonzaga-Soriano, better known as Toni Gonzaga, is a Filipino singer, host, actress, producer, vlogger and entrepreneur. Referred as the country's "Ultimate Multimedia Superstar" by various media outlets, she is the former lead host of long-running reality show, Pinoy Big Brother. She also owns a YouTube channel which is Toni Gonzaga Studio that has over 6 million subscribers.
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Imelda is a 2003 documentary film directed by Ramona S. Diaz about the life of Imelda Marcos, former First Lady of the Philippines. Beginning with her childhood, the film documents her marriage to future President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos, her rule under the dictatorship, her exile in Hawaii and her eventual return to the Philippines.
The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos is a 1976 memoir written in exile by former press censor and propagandist Primitivo Mijares. It details the inner workings of Philippine martial law under Ferdinand Marcos from the perspective of Mijares.
The burial of Ferdinand Marcos, a former Philippine President who ruled as a dictator for 21 years, took place on November 18, 2016, at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Fort Andres Bonifacio, Taguig, Metro Manila, Philippines. Marcos had been elected the 10th President of the Philippines in 1965, but declared Martial Law in 1972 before his final constitutionally allowed term was over, holding on to power until his overthrow by the People Power Revolution in 1986.
Batas Militar is a 1997 Filipino television documentary film about martial law under Ferdinand Marcos, and the ouster movement against him, the People Power Revolution. The film was directed by Jon Red and Jeannette Ifurung, with the former focusing on dramatizations.
The Marcos family is a political family in the Philippines. They have established themselves in the country's politics, having established a political dynasty that traces its beginnings to the 1925 election of Mariano Marcos to the Philippine House of Representatives as congressman for the second district of Ilocos Norte; reached its peak during the 21-year rule of Ferdinand Marcos as president of the Philippines that included his 14-year dictatorship beginning with the declaration of Martial Law throughout the country; and continues today with the political careers of Imelda Marcos, Imee Marcos, Sandro Marcos and reached a fresh political apex with the presidency of Bongbong Marcos.
Historical distortion regarding Ferdinand Marcos is a political phenomenon in the Philippines. Ferdinand Marcos was the country's president between 1965 and 1986. Distortion, falsification, or whitewashing of the historical record regarding this period, sometimes referred to using the phrases "historical denialism", "historical negationism", or "historical revisionism" as a euphemism for negationism, is an academically documented phenomenon linked to the return of Marcos' immediate family and political allies to government positions, as well as the hero's burial of Marcos himself in 2016. It continues Marcos' own efforts to create a cult of personality for himself, which in itself involved various forms of historical distortion.
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