Doors 7:30p
Program 8:00p

UnionDocs
352 Onderdonk Ave
Ridgewood, NY

We’re thrilled to co-present a special evening of film and conversation with Queer | Art! Come through for a screening of Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo — a rich, intimate archival documentary by Barbara Malaran and Desireena Almoradie that traces the legacy of a pioneering queer Filipinx collective born in the radical spirit of 1990s New York.

In Because of You, founding Kilawin members Malaran and Almoradie turn the lens inward to tell the story of Kilawin Kolektibo: queer women bound by defiance and desire, creating belonging in the margins of 90s New York. Melding video, ephemera, photographs and interviews, the film is part memoir, part manifesto, and part love letter — from Barbara to Desireena, from the filmmakers to Kilawin, and from the collective to future generations of QTBIPOC community builders.

What emerges is a raw and lyrical tribute to friendship, political awakening, and cultural resistance. The name Kilawin Kolektibo combines the word for a raw, spicy Filipino ceviche (kilawin), with a portmanteau of kolektib (collective) and tibo, a Tagalog slang word for lesbian. Formed in the face of exclusion from both Filipino and mainstream queer spaces, Kilawin transformed marginalization into belonging — building a chosen family that still spans continents and decades.

From the messiness of internal tensions to the beauty of collective healing, Because of You doesn’t shy away from complexity. It honors a legacy shaped by joy, grief, sex, activism, and cultural pride — a legacy that continues to resonate, urgently, today. Following the screening, join us for a conversation and Q&A with co-directors Barbara Malaran and Desireena Almoradie!

Program

Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo

40 min, 2025

Joyful, raw, revolutionary: Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo tells the story of queer Filipnxs who, in the 1990s, against a racist, lesbophobic backdrop, came together for the first time in NYC to create a safe and loving community.

Program Duration: 40 mins

Bios

Barbara Malaran (they/them) DIRECTOR, CAMERA, MUSIC, EDITOR is an interdisciplinary artist exploring autobiographical stories of community through video and audio narratives. Barbara’s artwork takes on an experimental view of travel, specifically with locating ties to imagining homelands, occupational and gender identities, to manipulating time working against memory decay. They were a member of the core group of Kilawin Kolektibo, a Pinay lesbian collective, and spent their formative years in NYC learning the craft of filmmaking by documenting Kilawin Kolektibo’s many actions at marches, protests, and celebrations. Barbara currently lives in Portland, OR. Barbara has a NYSCA grant, a Barbara Hammer Experimental Filmmaker Grant, and a Prism Foundation Grant for their documentary Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo, a collaboration with Desireena Almoradie. They are previously the recipient of the Open Initiative Artist Fellowship at The Kitchen, NY, and has exhibited their video work at the Leslie Lohman Museum, The Bronx River Art Center, Longwood Arts Project in the Bronx, The Queens Museum of Art, NY, the American Museum of Natural History in NY, among others.

Desireena Almoradie (she/they) PRODUCER, DIRECTOR, CAMERA, EDITOR emigrated from Manila, Philippines at the age of eleven, settling in the borough of Queens, New York with her family. Her works explore collective history with a focus on queer and/or BIPOC lives. She was nominated for an Emmy and has won a GLAAD Media Award for her work on In the Life, the seminal LGBT news magazine that aired on PBS for two decades. She co-founded the Diverse Filmmaker’s Alliance (DFA), a collective of filmmakers from all backgrounds working to diversify the filmmaking landscape. Most recently Desireena was awarded a NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Prism Foundation Grant, the Barbara Hammer Experimental Filmmaking Grant, and the New York State Council on the Arts grant for their documentary Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo, a collaboration with Barbara Malaran.