The Kingmaker is a documentary film written and directed by Lauren Greenfield, focusing on Imelda Marcos, the wife of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The film examines the ill effects of the Martial Law Era and narrates how the Marcoses returned to power after they were exiled during the People Power Revolution in 1986. The Kingmaker also explores how the Marcos family could have influenced Rodrigo Duterte’s presidential win in the 2016 elections.
The documentary premiered in the Philippines in January 2020 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the University of the Philippines Diliman. It will be available on iWant for free starting on May 15.
Watch the trailer below:
Complement the documentary with the Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. The book is written by Primitivo Mijares, a former reporter that peddled fake news for a newspaper controlled by Ferdinand Marcos back when the Philippines was under Martial Law. Mijares later had a change of heart and testified against the dictator in the US courts. He wrote The Conjugal Dictatorship in the hopes of exposing the tyranny of the Marcoses. Mijares disappeared months after the book was published in 1976.
The 1976 edition of The Conjugal Dictatorship is available in PDF form in the Ateneo’s Rizal Library website. You can download the book here.
With these resources available for free, it’s time to learn more about the history of the Philippines.
Patriz Biliran and Regina Peñarroyo co-run The Ampersand and write blog articles in their free time.
