Ramona S. Diaz has been bringing the past and present realities of living in the Phillipines to a worldwide audience for a quarter of a century. Whether she goes back to the dark days of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship (Imelda), immerses us in the dynamic microcosm of an overcrowded hospital (the Sundance Film Festival award-winner Motherland) or reveals the behind-the-scenes of a spectacular presidential campaign (And So It Begins), her films are always impressive: bursting with emotion and pulsing with colour. Diaz is as comfortable in the political salons as she is on the streets of Manila. Constantly on the move, close to her female protagonists, she is able to capture their behaviour at crucial moments. Her documentaries show us a reality that seems exotic and distant. But the issues she raises in them: the health care crisis, political nepotism, the restriction of media freedom, corruption, populism, propaganda - are central to the condition of democracy around the world. Her heroines (because the main characters in all Diaz's films are women) are warriors. Like Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist who challenged the Duterte regime, or Leni Robredo: a political debutante who stood up to the all-powerful Marcos clan in the Philippines. It is not only Philippine democracy that needs such female defenders today. 

The US Embassy in Warsaw supports the retrospective of Ramona S. Diaz's films.