‘A Thousand Cuts’ streaming in the Philippines starting March 13

A Thousand Cuts is coming home.

Starting 8 am on Saturday, March 13, Filipino-American filmmaker Ramona Diaz’s A Thousand Cuts will be available in the Philippines on PBS Frontline’s YouTube channel and website.

The documentary zooms in on Rappler’s fight for press freedom under President Rodrigo Duterte. The film shows several instances where the Duterte government attacked Rappler and its reporters for doing their jobs, including Ressa’s arrest in 2019 and when Malacañang reporter Pia Ranada was banned from entering the compound.

A Thousand Cuts debuted at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival to a standing ovation and has since won awards at several other film festivals. The film was also deemed eligible for Best Picture at the 2020 Academy Awards. 

In an interview with The Washington Post, Diaz talked about how no broadcaster in the Philippines was willing to air the documentary, which led Frontline to step in and purchase the film’s distribution rights for the country.

“While making the film, you never think that it’s not actually going to be shown in the Philippines,” Diaz said. “I’m naive, I guess. I was like, ‘Oh there’s still press freedom, someone will pick this up, right?’ I just never thought it would be this difficult to do.”

Despite this, Filipinos have shown great interest in seeing A Thousand Cuts. The documentary gained over 230,000 views on YouTube when it was available for 24 hours in the country on Independence Day, June 12, 2020.

Frontline will also be hosting a live roundtable discussion with Ressa and Diaz at 9 pm Philippine time on Saturday. You may register to watch the live discussion here.– Rappler.com

Watch A Thousand Cuts here:

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Watch the roundtable discussion with Maria Ressa, Ramona Diaz, and Rappler reporters Pia Ranada, Rambo Talabong, and Lian Buan here:

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