Mei Bastes

Jungle Love follows a handful of people who have disappeared into the jungle: a woman who has kidnapped her sister's child; an urbane couple and their indigenous guide; a bored and horny platoon; and a nameless tribe. Disappearance has another meaning in Sanchez’s native Mindanao, where a decades-old conflict between the government and secessionists fighting for an Islamic state has made the region infamous for its kidnappings. Sanchez took inspiration from an incident in which a friend living abroad visited an exhibition, and found a photo of him labeled as one of the disappeared. Jungle Love is permeated with this sense of the uncanny, as narratives and identities fracture and fuse into one another in the reckless, lonely places people go to escape themselves.

A film that follows the life of the last It Girl of Manila, Mei Bastes.

I am the drowning sea. Waxing, waning, vanishing, surrendering, yearning, drunk, helpless against your indifference, with no way out. You are the shore that never saves. I will wait for you to turn into a wave. And we will waltz. Drown together.