​ROLY WITHEROW

Balsa Wood (2014) 

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Balsa Wood is a comedy-drama by Dominique Lecchi about two mixed race siblings visiting their extended Filipino family for lunch. The film explores what it is to feel like an outsider within your own family. In the score I combined three types of music from the Philippines, "Tinikling", a Spanish-influenced music which uses guitars, mandolins and bamboo sticks, “Kulintang”, an indigenous form of music that uses vast microtonal pitched percussion instruments, and Filipino Rock, which combines lilting pacific sounds with American rock influences. Balsa Wood won best film at the Region festival in Poland and is now available to see in its entirety on Nowness here.

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