2009-2019—Introduction
by Ben Slater
There used to be a photograph online of the day that I met Alexis Tioseco—taken in a now-closed restaurant where we attended a dinner after a symposium on Asian film in Singapore, September 2005. People are around us, talking across the table, but Alexis and myself are turned towards each other, completely absorbed in a passionate discussion about cinema. We were instantly simpatico, and began a conversation that would continue for four great years, right up to a few short emails on the first afternoon of September 2009.
I didn’t meet Nika Bohinc until 2008 when she was visiting Alexis a year or so into their relationship. They came to Singapore for a weekend—a break from Manila. Alexis believed that I, having chosen to forsake Europe for Asia some years before (and also for love), would be a useful person to advise Nika, who was seriously considering the same move. I took them to eat dim sum, forgetting how fussy Alexis was about food. He struggled with the bao, but Nika enjoyed the meal, amused and slightly embarrassed. She was as quiet and reserved as Alexis was talkative and outgoing, but certainly not unfriendly. Later I got to see a more familiar side of Nika: fiercely argued opinions about films expressed between puffs on a cigarette.
They were a formidable couple, uniquely matched. Both relentless advocates of neglected filmmakers and film cultures in their home countries, the Philippines and Slovenia, and also truly global citizens of cinema, precociously rubbing shoulders with the critics they idolized, as they traveled to festivals around the world (and Alexis’s still-visible Flickr account is a vivid, and lighthearted memento of that era).
In the days and weeks after their deaths on September 1, 2009, I found consolation in reading the many stories that people wrote about them—in blogs, articles, and on social media. Some who wrote didn’t know them but were moved by others’ accounts and in particular “The Letter I Would Love to Read to You in Person,” a long article by Alexis that was dedicated to Nika. It was a manifesto on the love of cinema and love itself—values that the two of them stood for so suddenly and clearly. Several photographs of them together rapidly circulated online; they became icons of a romantic, young, intense cinephilia. Through the grief I realized how fortunate we were, those who’d known them and had been their friends. We’d always have that.
And now, ten years have passed with brutal speed. We’ve grown up, aged, had children or not, started and ended careers, relationships, friendships; scrapped plans, made new ones, celebrated victories and had failures big and small; and dealt with myriad other losses—but the beauty and pain of our memories of Alexis and Nika remain indelible.
We have remembered them by dedicating our films, publications and events to them. Among others, there are a few who made films about their memories (Lav Diaz’s An Investigation on the Night that Won’t Forget [2012], José Luis Guerin’s contributions to Correspondencia Jonas Mekas —J.L. Guerin [2011]), and there is a book, The First Impulse, published in 2017 by Laurel Flores Fantauzzo, a writer who never met Alexis and Nika. Rather, she immersed herself deeply in their lives, investigated the dreadful circumstances of their deaths (in particular the glacial pace and dubious strategies of official inquiries), while exploring her own sense of Philippine identity. And in doing so she created a powerful narrative of remembrance.
Some of us started projects “in their name,” attempting to infect others with the “good virus” (to quote Gareth Evans) of a passionate cinephilia (NANG magazine itself being a fitting example). Occasionally I give workshops on film criticism to young people, and I always tell their story. A few years ago I led a session around the idea of “Love Letters.” This was a project that Alexis, May Adadol Ingawanij, and myself initiated back in 2008, to ask critics to write about the things they loved (in part a riff on Alexis’s letter to Nika) that was eventually published on Alexis’ website, Criticine, in early 2010. For the workshop I asked fifteen or so students to write letters to an aspect of cinema that they loved—a film, an actor, a moment, anyone or anything—and to not feel the burden of being “critical.” As they read their work aloud, I was taken aback by the emotions the task unlocked; many pieces were intensely personal, as films and lives became intertwined; some wept. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Earlier this year, Davide Cazzaro, publisher of NANG, approached me about co-editing with him a special online Issue that would mark the decade without Alexis and Nika. This was another chance to recuperate something from our loss. We asked younger, emerging writers (the next generation or so) to write with love about what they have watched over the last decade of Asian cinema. We’ve had entries from all over the world, as varied in style as their subject matter and places of origin—some writers knew of Alexis and Nika before the project, and many hadn’t, but all are dealing with the same issues they grappled with, namely the interplay between self and place and cinema.
We invited Laurel Flores Fantauzzo to contribute to the Issue. If you are less familiar with who Alexis and Nika are, then her writing is an essential point of departure, and also a reflection on the process of writing her book and its aftermath. Laurel’s participation led to us re-publishing two important articles.
Alexis’s aforementioned “The Letter I Would Love to Read to You in Person” was published in 2008 in the Philippine culture magazine Rogue, but it has long been only available pasted onto blogs, so we’ve taken the opportunity, with the permission of the Tioseco family, to reproduce it here. Related to that, we wanted Erwin Romulo, one of Alexis’ closest friends and his editor/collaborator of the “Letter,” to contribute his own thoughts on “Ten Years After,” which, as he explains in his piece, were not easy to write.
While researching Nika’s story in Slovenia, Laurel had some of her film writings translated into English by Maja Lovrenov. Here we publish in its entirety for the first time, with the permission of the Bohinc family, a 2008 editorial, “Professionalism the Cinema Way,” written for Ekran, the Slovenian film magazine that Nika edited between 2006 and 2008, and contextualized for us by Koen Van Daele. As you will read, Nika pulls no punches in cataloguing the systemic lack of support for a vibrant film culture in her home country—a perennial issue. In the final paragraph her writing changes tone, shifting from polemic to poetic. She articulates a burst of complex emotions, hinting at coming upheavals in her own life. These remarkable words are poignant to read now, because they are so full of hope for the future. And it was with hope, as Erwin writes, that Alexis wanted his “Letter” to conclude.
For this Issue we wanted to take a moment to look back, but mostly we want to look forward. The project Alexis and Nika embraced so passionately needs to be an ongoing one. The best way we can remember them is to do what they loved: To watch (and even make) films, to have conversations, uncover histories, find connections, write articles, promote and publish others, and to express fiercely argued opinions between puffs on a cigarette.
Long may it continue.
Thanks to all those who have generously given their time and energy to this Issue.
Ben Slater is a writer, teacher and filmmaker who has written and edited many publications, essays and articles relating to cinema, including NANG 1: SCREENWRITING. He’s a Senior Lecturer in the School of Art, Media & Design at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.