Joseph Mangat

Movies

Divine Factory
Director
A documentary that examines the peculiarities of religion, labor, capital and gender all intersecting at a Catholic figurines factory in the Philippines, where devout LGBTQ workers and outcasts pray to the same items they make.
The Paradise We Are Looking For
Director
San Diego has been called many things – including a paradise. It’s also a refugee city, a cluster of neighborhoods, a militarized zone, a border town. And Asian American. This collection of four short documentaries, commissioned on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the San Diego Asian Film Festival, maps many such San Diego’s – across ethnicity, geography and history. At the same time, they hold on to some notion of paradise, however illusory: a haven from war, the dreams of an immigrant, precious teenage reminiscences, solace in the afterlife, and spaces for creative expression.