My Revolutionary Mother

Synopsis

My Revolutionary Mother follows Jethro Patalinghug's attempt to confront and understand the woman at the center of his family story: his mother, Virginia, who left the Philippines for the United States to provide for her children after political pressure and economic hardship made staying impossible.

The film moves between personal memory and the broader reality of Filipino labor migration. It asks what children inherit from absence, what mothers sacrifice to survive, and how a family begins to repair what distance has broken.

Context

GMA News described the film as a 36-minute documentary rooted in Patalinghug's own experience of being separated from his mother after she migrated to the United States to provide for the family. The article also notes that the film began as a deeply personal confrontation and became a path toward closure, with Patalinghug framing the story as both a commentary on poverty in the Philippines and a universal story about forgiving mothers for their shortcomings.

The project was made while Patalinghug was emerging as a San Francisco-based documentary filmmaker, after earlier work in Philippine television and film training in the Bay Area.

Recognition

• CAAMFest 2014

  Official Selection

• Cinemalaya 2015

  Official Selection

• Boston Asian American Film Festival 2015

  Best Documentary Short

• Pinoy Rebyu

  Included among the best Philippine documentaries of 2015

Credits

Producer, director, editor Jethro Patalinghug

Subject Virginia Patalinghug

Additional crew credits available upon request.