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      The Vilcek Foundation raises awareness of immigrant contributions in the United States and fosters appreciation of the arts and sciences.

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      The Vilcek Foundation Prizes are awarded to foreign-born individuals for extraordinary achievement in the arts and sciences.

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Home > Prizes > Prize Recipients > Miko Revereza

Miko Revereza

2021 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Filmmaking

Location

Los Angeles, CA

Title

Experimental filmmaker

Area(s) of Research

Experimental film; documentary; cinematography

Education

Bard College, Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts (MFA, Film and Video)

Country of Birth

Philippines

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Miko Revereza, wearing a blue jacket and red turtleneck, sitting against a neutral gray background.
Courtesy of Miko Revereza/Carolina Fusilier.

“Coming of age came with a burden of learning what I was legally excluded from doing. Experimental film became an outlet for defiance—a safe space where divergent thinking is celebrated.”

Miko Revereza recalls the process of uncovering and understanding his own experience as an undocumented person in the United States by the time he was a young teenager. As his peers pursued jobs, drivers’ licenses, and paths towards college, Revereza realized that without a Social Security number or citizenship those experiences were inaccessible to him. He filled his schedule in high school with photography and filmmaking classes, finding joy in exploring the medium. “I was skipping class and taking the BART to Berkeley, going to poetry readings and experimental film screenings at Pacific Film Archive. I found experimental film as a medium that wasn’t bound to rules, as my life was so bound to these bureaucratic rules that excluded me from other experiences.”

Miko Revereza pictured with his mother in 1990.
Born in Manila, Philippines, Revereza (pictured here at age 2 with his mother) would later move to the United States in 1993.

Revereza continued his pursuit of experimental and documentary film independently, producing, building, and exhibiting a comprehensive portfolio. Spanning short films, gallery installations, and music videos, Revereza’s body of work examines the process of documenting the undocumented, and explores themes of diaspora, colonialism, and Americanization.

Revereza’s first short film, Droga!, combines high-contrast Super-8 film, archival video footage, voice-over, and music in an exploration of the experience of being an undocumented person living in Los Angeles. The film has a feverish quality, a sense that the world depicted within is real but revealed anew: a veil pulled back to leave the viewer feeling raw, fully exposed to the granularity of its sounds and surfaces, and the ticking precariousness of time. No Data Plan, Revereza’s first feature film, documents his experience of being confronted by the presence of immigration officers while traveling cross-country by train. The ephemeral quality of the film—hued by its images, captured entirely while in transit—is pierced through with the threat of violence and Revereza’s acute fear. No Data Plan had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Miko Revereza holding a microphone and speaking at a Q&A in front of a movie theater screen.
Revereza speaking after a screening of No Data Plan at Film at Lincoln Center in New York City. Courtesy of Miko Revereza/Sean DiSerio.

When the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was launched in 2012, Revereza was eligible to apply for a temporary status of deferred deportation and work permit under the program’s guidelines. Enacted by executive order, however, the program is tenuous, its future not guaranteed. The ephemerality of any security the program imparts serves as another element of bureaucratic architecture in the landscape of Revereza’s work.

“Making a film, for me, is a thought process, and it’s part of my personal transformation and how I navigate the world,” Revereza says. “My practice isn’t a project-based one; it’s a continual investigation.” His ingenuity and the urgency with which he bridges the personal and the political challenge us to rethink aspects of both documentary filmmaking and the immigrant experience.

 

Awards and accomplishments

  • Images Festival, More With Less Award for Biometrics (2020)
  • Western Front: Artist in Residence (2020)
  • CNN Philippines: The best Filipino films of 2019 (2019)
  • Hyperallergic: Best of 2019: Our Top 12 Documentaries and Experimental Films (2019)
  • BFI: Sight & Sound International Film Magazine: The 50 Best Films of 2019 (2019)
  • San Diego Asian Film Festival Emerging Filmmaker Award (2019)
  • Flaherty Seminar Featured Filmmaker (2019)
  • Filmmaker Magazine: 25 New Faces of Independent Cinema (2018)

Nowhere Near

  • Marché du film de Cannes Docs Showcase for Nowhere Near (2020)
  • Purin Pictures Production Grant Award for Nowhere Near (2020)
  • Open City Documentary Festival, Assembly Grant recipient for Nowhere Near (2019)
  • Hubert Bals Fund: Bright Future Award for Nowhere Near (2019)

No Data Plan

  • Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art – Screening (2020)
  • National Gallery of Art – Screening (2020)
  • Anthology Film Archives – Screening (2020)
  • Los Angeles Film Forum – Screening (2020)
  • Downtown Community Television Center – DCTV NY – Screening (2020)
  • Film Society of Lincoln Center, Art of the Real Festival – Screening (2019)
  • True/False Festival – Screening (2019)
  • Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (2019)
  • Sheffield Doc/Fest Art Award (2019)

Jury Members

2021 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Filmmaking

Dori Begley

Executive Vice President, Magnolia Pictures

Justin Chang

Film Critic, Los Angeles Times

Ashley Clark

Curatorial Director, The Criterion Collection

Kim Hendrickson

Executive Producer, The Criterion Collection

La Frances Hui

Associate Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art

Debra Zimmerman

Executive Director, Women Make Movies

Related Prize Recipients

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Rodrigo Prieto receives the Vilcek Prize in Filmmaking for his virtuosity and versatility—the sheer excellence and inventiveness of his work across styles and genres—and his central role in creating some of contemporary cinema’s most indelible works.
Portrait of Rodrigo Prieto

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