(ᐧᐧ - - ᐧᐧ) / IMI aka “I will now repeat the last word sent” is an expanded cinema performance collaboration using queer macho-dancing and catastrophe-clowning to disrupt imperialist mythologies of pearl-diving, typhoon mitigation, and conquest. What are Mother Earth’s coveted truths? Who is entitled to Her treasures? How can a true return back-to-land empower us to move towards regenerative ecologies with unequivocal accountability? We seek to lay bare the ways history fabrication and government corruption work hand-in-hand to exotify and extract natural resources–natural resources we hope to re-imagine as natural resistors against invasive forces (much like a pearl birthing herself in layers and layers of mollusk). Based loosely on the “history” of the Filipino Pearl of Lao Tzu and merging resistance poetics from CHamoru human rights lawyer, Julian Aguon’s “The Ocean Within”, (ᐧᐧ - - ᐧᐧ) / IMI tests the waters of our imagination to contend with the (un)natural disasters ravaging our (not-so) distant homelands.
(ᐧᐧ - - ᐧᐧ) / IMI aka “I will now repeat the last word sent”
LEIMAY Constellation Series: POLLEN - Crystal Wind
January 2026
Filmmaker: Gia Abucejo
Projectionist: Benja Thompson