Nandito tayo ngayon
Nabong, Patricia. “Nandito Tayo Ngayon.” Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis, Univer- sity of the Philippines College of Mass Communication, 2015.
Nandito Tayo Ngayon narrates the story of Edith, a retiring photography professor who was recently diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Still unable to come to terms with her husband’s death many years ago and knee-deep in a period of loss and change, she copes with impermanence by hoarding objects and obsessively taking photos. As she struggles to stay afloat, her relationship with her daughter, Clarisse, is tested as they both prepare to move houses- and move forward.
The narrative film is about the acceptance of the things and people in life that are passing. Framed by the theory of semiotics, it explores how memories and, consequently, meaning is assigned to objects. It shows how fleeting memories acquire permanence through the objects and photographs that represent them. The story also comments on the photographic medium while it parallels the film’s theme of transience with Henri Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment and Andre Bazin’s Mummy Complex.