‘Bulakna’ invokes the name of an ancient Filipino warrior who resisted colonial invasion. A portrait of strength and inequality, the film follows Filipino women who nowadays face a new form of colonization: forced migration for work. Domestic workers in foreign countries, thousands of Filipino women support other people’s economies, working as caregivers and leaving their own families behind in their homeland. Trapped in a global logic that turns care into a bargaining chip, they live divided between sustenance and longing, between duty and absence.
Leonor Noivo
She studied Architecture and Photography before joining the Lisbon Theatre and Film School, where she specialized in Editing and Directing in 2004. She attended the Ateliers Varan Documentary Filmmaking course in 2006 at the C. Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. Since then she has worked as script-supervisor, scriptwriter and assistant director in documentaries and fiction films and collaborated with directors like João Pedro Rodrigues, João Salaviza, João Nicolau, Marília Rocha, Pedro Pinho, Tiago Hespanha, João Vladimiro, João Botelho, Carlos Conceição, Inês Oliveira, Filipa Reis and João Miller, among others. She is co-founder of the production company Terratreme Filmes, a platform of filmmakers created in 2008. Her filmography as director includes films like ‘Aside Macao’ (2001), ‘Mould’ (2005), ‘Excursion’ (2007), ‘Later Day Saints’ (2009), ‘Other Letters or the Invented Love’ (2012), ‘September’ (2016), ‘All I Imagine’ (2017), ‘Reynard’ (2019, exhibido en Tiempo de Historia), ‘Madrugada’ (2021) or ‘Bulakna’ (2025), premiered at FIDMarseille. Her films have been screened in several international festivals such as Locarno, Rotterdam, Vienalle, Clermont-Ferrand, or Ficunam, among others, having won several awards and mentions.
DIRECTOR
Leonor Noivo
SCREENPLAY
Leonor Noivo, Patricia Guerreiro
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Vasco Saltão
EDITOR
Luísa Homem, Vasco Saltão, Marine de Contes, Telmo Churro, Francisco Moreira, Pedro Teixeira
SOUND
Vicente Molder, Hugo Leitão, Xavier Thieulin
PRODUCTION
Celeste Alves, João Niza Ribeiro, João Matos, Leonor Noivo, Luisa Homem, Pedro Pinho, Susana Nobre, Tiago Hespanha, Mathilde Delaunay, Enguerrand Déterville, François Martin Saint León, John Torres
Luísa Homem, Vasco Saltão, Marine de Contes, Telmo Churro, Francisco Moreira, Pedro Teixeira
SOUND
Vicente Molder, Hugo Leitão, Xavier Thieulin
PRODUCTION
Celeste Alves, João Niza Ribeiro, João Matos, Leonor Noivo, Luisa Homem, Pedro Pinho, Susana Nobre, Tiago Hespanha, Mathilde Delaunay, Enguerrand Déterville, François Martin Saint León, John Torres
