If I Only Knew The End Never Ends

Distant childhoods are examined between two families: a Filipino family residing in the Philippines, and a Fil-Am family residing in the United States, through a series of vacation trip stills taken five years apart from each other.

  • Aki Red
    Director
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Kung Alam Ko Lang Na Walang Katapusan Ang Katapusan
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short, Student
  • Runtime:
    6 minutes 45 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 29, 2021
  • Country of Origin:
    Philippines
  • Country of Filming:
    Philippines
  • Language:
    Tagalog
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - De La Salle - College of Saint Benilde
Director Biography - Aki Red

Aki Red is a 21 - year old student filmmaker from De Lasalle College of Saint Benilde (CSB) who seeks to further hone his skills in storytelling and other visual arts. Strong passion for using film as a medium to shape the way the society works, and to provide the moviegoing audience unique stories that cater to the human experience. His short films have won in local film festivals in the Philippines, and had been selected in film festivals from the United States, Croatia, Brazil, and India.

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Director Statement

I’ve only been given a chance to spend time physically with my half-American cousins on three separate occasions my entire life. They only get to visit the Philippines every five years because the trips are expensive. My family and I, on the other hand, wishes to visit them back in the States, but we can’t afford the expenses of the trip either. Financial burdens force both sides of our families to make the most out these 2-week visits; catch each other up with five years worth of experiences because we have no other choice but to do so. Besides, the expenses of the trip will be wasted if we do not get close and arm ourselves with new memories to hold onto for the next five years — all in a span two weeks. Their fourth visit is supposedly due this year, but unfortunately, the pandemic will further delay their visit to an unspecified amount of time. The five year cycle is broken — and probably for the worse.

Those three occasions of the past are now ingrained as memories slowly fading. Should I blame the five year gap for the seemingly lack of weight to our past experiences? Or maybe, it’s all just part of growing up? I find myself struggling to latch onto concrete memories and emotions that I shared with my cousins, and how I wish I knew how they are feeling at these moments. It’s been more than five years since we all last spoke to each other. Ironically, the few memories that remain with me are those we had when we were still young and clueless. Those were better times, as we didn’t fully grasp yet the meaning of human attachment.

Living in the Philippines where family and togetherness are in the core of the Filipino experience, it dawned to me how unfair it was for us to force each other to cope up with a “distance” we never wanted in the first place. The 5-year cycle of returns and farewells is one ruthless cycle that I wish to get out from. However, as long as that “distance” exists, we are all just forced to cope. Our faded memories, therefore, become proof of the long term consequences of settling with just coping, but are there any other choices left to choose from? That’s something that I do wish to find out through the process of making this documentary. Through this film, I hope to shed light to the difficulties faced by Filipino families, specifically that of Filipino children, who are separated by distances that they are just forced to accept without them knowing. These children only realize once they have reached adulthood that their memories are lacking, and now, they do not know who to blame. They just move forward with their individual lives, until that “distance” engulfs their memories completely — turning them into complete strangers.