About the Documentary

Few modern political figures have been as controversial, outspoken and perhaps misunderstood as Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines and the subject of award-winning filmmaker Ramona Diaz’s Imelda. For the first time, Marcos tells her own story on film: how she rose from humble origins to become one of the richest and most powerful women in contemporary world history.

Universally known by her first name, or by her nickname, “The Iron Butterfly,” Imelda Marcos is the widow of the late Ferdinand Marcos, the exiled president of the Philippines. The Marcoses ruled the Philippines for nearly 20 years after Ferdinand Marcos became president in 1965, declaring martial law in 1972 and maintaining close ties with the U.S. during their time in office. Despite strict governmental control and violence, opposition to Marcos’s regime continued to grow in the following years. After a controversial vote count in Ferdinand Marcos’s1986 presidential run against Corazón Aquino, the widow of slain political rival Benigno Aquino, a popular uprising forced the Marcoses to leave the Philippines and flee to Hawaii, where they lived in exile until Ferdinand Marcos’s death. Throughout their years in office, it was Imelda, whose beauty, cosmopolitan bearing and lavish tastes eventually brought her more fame—and perhaps even more power—than her husband.

Imelda is told through exceptionally rare and original interviews with Marcos herself. Diaz and her crew were given unprecedented access to Marcos’s life, following her throughout the Philippines and even living in her home for a period of time. Marcos is both vivaciously charming as she addresses the camera and perplexing as she expounds upon her personal cosmology and addresses the question: What about all the shoes?

But Imelda, like the woman herself, is about far more than just shoes. To this day, Filipinos demonstrate equal passion in either their adulation or loathing of this larger-than-life figure. Will Imelda Marcos finally be convicted of charges that range from graft to human rights abuses? And if she is, will a verdict against her restore a natural order to the Philippines, or merely add martyrdom to the weight of her symbolic claim? Shot by cinematographer Ferne Pearlstein in 16-millimeter film and awarded a Sundance 2004 prize for excellence in cinematography, IMELDA is a visually stunning look at one of the world’s most reviled and revered women.

The Filmmakers

Ramona S. Diaz
Diaz is an award-winning Filipino American filmmaker whose credits include Spirits Rising, an hour-long documentary about women’s role in the 1986 People Power revolution in the Philippines. Spirits Rising received a Student Academy Award, the Ida Lupino Director’s Guild of America Award, a Golden Gate Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival, a Gold Apple from the National Educational Media Network and a Certificate of Merit from the International Documentary Association. It has been screened internationally and broadcast on public television stations in the United States and Australia.

Prior to pursuing a career as an independent filmmaker, Diaz was an associate producer for Cadillac Desert, a major PBS documentary series about the quest for water in the American West. She also line produced and edited an award-winning, 24-part television documentary series in the Philippines about the immigrant experiences of Filipinos residing in Europe and America entitled Apple Pie, Patis, Paté, atbp. Diaz has also worked in Los Angeles as a writer’s assistant for Mary Tyler Moore Productions and as a producer’s assistant for Lorimar Productions. She is a graduate of Emerson College and holds an M.A. in communication from Stanford University.

Ferne Pearlstein
Pearlstein won the Documentary Cinematography Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival for her work on IMELDA. A graduate of Stanford University’s M.A. film program and the International Center of Photography, she began her career as a photographer before becoming an award-winning director and cinematographer. She was director of production on Ruthie and Connie for HBO (2002 Berlinale); Voice of the Prophet (Sundance, Toronto, Human Rights Watch ‘02); Pleasures of Urban Decay (Sundance 2000), and Secret People (PBS). As a director, her films include Raising Nicholas (Sundance 1993), To Meet the Elephant (PBS), and Dita and the Family Business. Her feature film Sumo East and West premiered at the 2003 Tribeca and IFP/LA Film Festivals and was broadcast on Independent Lens. Recently, Pearlstein has shifted her focus from documentary to narrative film as director of photography on the shorts Easter Sunday, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh (Tribeca, 2005), and The Suzy Prophecy, starring Heather Juergensen. She is currently second unit director, director of photography, editor and associate producer on the feature film Land of the Blind, starring Ralph Fiennes and Donald Sutherland.

Leah Marino
Marino has worked on documentaries for 12 years. Before editing IMELDA, she worked as an editor for numerous documentaries that have aired on PBS. She is currently editing The Creek Runs Red, a documentary about a town in Oklahoma which was the first superfund site in the United States, and recently completed Dirt, a feature documentary about the bottom class of dirt track racecar drivers at the Devils Bowl Speedway in Mesquite, Texas. In the summer of 2004, Marino edited Light from the East, a documentary film about an American actress’s exploration of events inside the Ukraine as the Soviet Union was collapsing. It premiered at the 2005 SXSW Film Festival. Marino worked for six years at Galan Productions, where she completed Winter Texans, the Emmy award-winning segment of the series The Border. She started her career as an assistant editor on Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, a four-part series that aired on PBS in 1996.

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