Here’s a film worth including on your must-watch list: Lauren Greenfield’s critically acclaimed documentary The Kingmaker, which centers on the infamous Imelda Marcos — first lady to the Martial Law dictator Ferdinand Marcos — and her desire to restore the Marcoses into glory and power after decades of well-documented corruption and human rights violations.
The filmmaker announced that The Kingmaker is now available for online streaming for free, after working out an arrangement with its distributors ABS-CBN and iWantTFC.
Finally! We have worked out an arrangement with our partners @ABSCBN and @iwanttfc, and are now able to share THE KINGMAKER with *all* of our friends in the Philippines – https://t.co/WNVUwZJSyc
— Lauren Greenfield (@lgreen66) March 10, 2022
Anyone can now watch it, so pls share this link #thekingmaker
The Kingmaker debuted at the 76th Venice International Film Festival in 2019, and depicts Imelda as an “unreliable narrator” through which the Marcoses’ ascent to power is seen through her lens, and later opposed by survivors of martial law — an approach that The New York Times praised as dialectic.
READ: So what was so bad about martial law?
In January, Greenfield said that she and her team were “actively trying to encourage top executives” at Netflix and iWantTFC to broadcast The Kingmaker on both platforms simultaneously.
In an interview with Vox, Greenfield described Imelda, “I thought she was surprisingly candid in the first interview, so it seemed more like she believed her own story, rather than telling untruths. It took me like a little while to realize that what she said was just not true… I learned about other things that were obviously untrue. When it got to the really egregious things, then it became really clear. I realized she had a strategic narrative that was part of redeeming the name of Marcos and part of coming back to power.”
The first half chronicles the events of Imelda’s life and her influence on the strongman Ferdinand during the Marcos regime, while the second half focuses on the Marcos family’s political comeback, the alliance struck with President Rodrigo Duterte in his 2016 presidential bid, and her plans to see her son Ferdinand Jr., aka Bongbong, elected as president.
Bongbong Marcos is a front-runner in the upcoming presidential elections this May.
Already 50K views in less than 24 hours. Keep retweeting! https://t.co/WNVUx01tpK
— Lauren Greenfield (@lgreen66) March 11, 2022
Stream The Kingmaker for free — no signups, no downloads — here.
READ: Bongbong Marcos skips CNN debate, confirms attendance at debate with Quiboloy-owned network
