Tuli

Director: Auraeus Solito
Screenwriters: Jimmy Flores

Institute History

  • 2007 Sundance Film Festival

Description

A group of young Pilipino boys gathers at the creek. Through the lush forest, sun dapples the ground and water. A kind of ritual begins to transpire. The boys, one by one, are circumcised in a requisite rite of passage. A young girl, Daisy, is also there and becomes her father's stoic assistant in the act. Life in the remote Pilipino village seems simple and innocent.

But as the children grow up, the plot becomes more complicated. Cut to Daisy, a beautiful young woman. She is dissatisfied with her life, and her father is continually drunk and increasingly abusive. An arranged marriage seems her only way out, but she has her eye on a different life. She is already falling in love with her female childhood friend—a relationship that threatens to tear the village apart.

As he did so well in The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, Auraeus Solito again offers a glimpse into another culture; this time, it's not the grey city but the lush greens and rich hues of earth and sky. His story transpires in a magical, rustic style, where Old World spiritualism commingles with colorful Christian rituals. In Tuli, Solito transforms Daisy's male-dominated existence into a place where new ideas can thrive and prosper.

— John Cooper

Screening Details

As you use our Online Archives, please understand that the information presented from Festivals, Labs, and other activities is taken directly from official publications from each year. While this information is limited and doesn't necessarily represent the full list of participants (e.g. actors and crew), it is the list given to us by the main film/play/project contact at the time, based on the space restrictions of our publications. Each entry in the Online Archives is meant as a historical record of a particular film, play, or project at the time of its involvement with Sundance Institute. For this reason, we can only amend an entry if a name is misspelled, or if the entry does not correctly reflect the original publication. If you have questions or comments, please email [email protected]