Catch Habang Nilalamon ng Hydra Ang Kasaysayan in the cinema today or tomorrow, before cinema owners cut its run short. Don’t be intimidated by its long title. Those words may not be yours, but this indie movie is your voice. Your voice as a Filipino. Your voice as a Filipino voter who lost in the last presidential election. Your voice as a losing Filipino voter who continues to believe in the democratic system. Your voice as a losing Filipino voter in a democracy that suffers from an affliction—undying hope.
This is a 2025 film written and directed by Dustin Celestino (Utopia, Ang Duyan ng Magiting), a millennial director who knows how to wield his pen and craft to narrate and curate the story of his times, the times we live in, and to rub it in even if it hurts.
Habang Nilalamon was done in the wake of a bruising election and a near-fatal defeat for a significant segment of the Filipino population that believed an honest and competent leader could be voted into office even in a rotten electoral system. So did Celestino’s movie offer the catharsis the vanquished Filipino spirit so needed at that time? You, the filmgoer, can decide.
The film visits a family and a community that invested itself in the campaign of a presidential candidate in the 2022 elections—and lost. These campaigners are intense, especially the character of Dolly de Leon, whose mind and heart swing from idealism and commitment to bitterness. Dolly is joined by Jojit Lorenzo, Zanjoe Marudo, and Mylene Dizon. You can’t relish more superb acting.
Celestino’s script/dialogue is admittedly long, and in some moments, didactic, and he doesn’t apologize for it, but you don’t mind the monologues and soliloquies precisely because you feel it is you talking. The actors are taking the words right out of your mouth.
The story takes you to the peaks and pits of a presidential election that you knew from the start would be a mythical struggle, yet you commit yourself to the fight. Celestino used the mythical creature Hydra, the vile multi-head serpent, to represent this era of corruption and fake news. Like the serpent whose heads can’t be cut off, the insidious propaganda that has brainwashed a subliterate electorate is an unending spill-over. He holds up a mirror to your face and to a helpless society.
Produced by Cine Mutu, it is time-bound story that, ironically, is bound to be timeless—the run-up to the 2028 elections finds us in the same rut, but only with bigger money lost to corruption and more brazen faces of politicians. Producer is Janel Gutierrez Celestino, cinematography by Kara Moreno, editing by John Rogers, music by Paulo Protacio.
So go to the cinema today, and listen to yourself.
