Rolando Tolentino
Rolando B. Tolentino is a Filipino cultural studies scholar, film critic, educator, and writer.
Early life and education
Tolentino was born on November 10, 1964, in Manila, Philippines. He completed his elementary and secondary education at Colegio de San Agustin. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from De La Salle University in 1986 and his Master of Arts in Philippine Studies from the same university in 1991. He later pursued a PhD in Film, Literature, and Culture at the University of Southern California, which he completed in 1997 under a Fulbright Grant.Career
Academic and literary contributions
Tolentino is a prolific scholar and writer, known for his essays and books on Philippine cinema, culture, and politics. In his essay “Marcos, Brocka, Bernal, City Films, and the Contestation for Imagery of Nation,” he analyzed the works of filmmakers Lino Brocka and Ishmael Bernal, noting their critical engagement with the Marcos dictatorship and their portrayal of poverty. He wrote, “Brocka’s social melodramas evoked the limitations on individual growth and productive transformation,” and that Brocka and Bernal “utilized the topic and theme of poverty under the dictatorship that had sought to render these scenes as invisible to an international audience.”Tolentino has authored and edited several notable works, including:
- National/Transnational: Subject Formation and Media in and on the Philippines
- Geopolitics of the Visible: Essays on Philippine Film Cultures
- Editor of the special issue “Vaginal Economy: Cinema and Sexuality in the Post-Marcos Post-Brocka Philippines” for the journal positions
He has also edited the anthology “Plus/+ at Iba Plus, Maramihan: New Philippine Nonfiction on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identities,” co-edited with Chuckberry J. Pascual, which won the Best Anthology in Filipino at the 41st National Book Awards.