Moral

Four best friends are graduating from the University of the Philippines Diliman, their paths diverging in significant, if inevitable ways. Joey (Lorna Tolentino) bounces from lover to lover, couch to couch. Kathy (Gina Alajar), a mediocre singer, is intent on making it at all costs. Sylvia (Sandy Andolong) separates from her husband, while he sets up house with another man. Maritess (Anna Marin) gets married and sees her life reduced to the role of mother and housewife. Over the course of three years, the life of four friends intersects at the vanguard of wider societal changes.

Unhurried, rich with character development, and unlike any ensemble in international cinema, Moral, the midpoint film in Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s landmark feminist trilogy, is often considered one of the best Filipino films ever made. Miraculously restored from near-unsalvageable elements in 2017, it remains an essential film for its bold structure and epic portrait of womanhood in the time of Martial Law. From anti-Marcos resistance to American culture creeping to new values being put in practice, Moral is a novelistic examination of an evolving Philippines society heading into the 80s with updated definitions.

Marilou Diaz-Abaya was a film and television director and screenwriter. She  began her career in the 1980s and was  part of the generation that defined what  is today remembered as the “Second  Golden Age of Philippine Cinema.” Her first collaboration with screenwriter Ricky Lee was Brutal (1980).  They would go on to collaborate on half of her filmography. Brutal was a box-office success and a  critically acclaimed work, for which she received her first Best Director award from the Metro Manila Film Festival  (MMFF).  She emerged as a bold experimenter of storytelling structure and a fierce creative protester of the harrowing plight of women in a male-dominated society. Moral (1982), was named  Outstanding Film of the Year by the British Film Institute.  Karnal (1983), received the Best Picture prizes at the MMFF and the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS). It was also named one of the Ten Best Films of the Decade by the  Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino. She directed television and gave the public a variety of shows. In 1997, she directed Rolando Tinio’s Milagros, which won ten awards at the  Gawad Urian, and the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino named it one of the best films of the decade. Sa Pusod ng Dagat (1998), received the International Federation of  Film Critics/Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema Award at Singapore International  Film Festival. Her Jose Rizal Best  Picture and Best Director, at the MMFF and FAMAS, and was named one of the best films of the decade by the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino.  Muro-Ami (1999), also won Best Picture and Best Director at the MMFF and FAMAS. Bagong Buwan (2001) likewise won the Best Picture and Best Director prizes at FAMAS. She established the Asia Pacific Film Institute in 2005 and then the Marilou Diaz-Abaya Film Institute and Arts Center in 2007.