About the director:

JIM LIBIRAN’s ultra-realist, "Tribu,"

bagged three of Cinemalaya 2007's coveted
awards: Best Film, Best Actor (Ensemble cast of
real-life gang members), and Best Sound.

Libiran based his first full length film on a

screenplay that won the prestigious Palanca Award
for Literature in 2006. "Tribu" is hailed for its
"grand and graphic depiction of contemporary
Tondo, Manila, its raw passion and searing
violence, its terrible social conditions and conflicting social mores, and its people’s coruscating
embrace of both the sacred and the profane, the filial and the tribal, the tender and the vicious.”

This native of Tondo, is a multi-awarded writer, poet, essayist, documentary filmmaker, activist and
television producer and journalist. He has, tucked in his belt, a total of ten years work experience in
television news – from segment producer, he rose from the ranks to become a reporter and then as
manager of ABS-CBN’s news and public affairs division. He transferred to ABC 5 to become the
Head of Production for News and Public Affairs.

Before television he spent ten years working in various print media companies, from tabloids to
broadsheet dailies to magazines. While working as a newspaper journalist, he was also a labor
activist, and a grassroots organizer/educator.

In his spare time, he works on short films, joins literary contests (poetry and essay), and produce
documentaries for television. As a broadcast journalist, he has done documentaries and reportage on
the eve of the wars in Iraq; the Taliban defeat and the Northern Alliance take over in Afghanistan;
the rebellions in Mindanao; EDSA DOS uprising; as well as socio-cultural investigations on things
uniquely Filipino.

This film brings Libiran deep into the hip hop sub-culture in the Philippines and the hidden world of
teenage gangsters in urban areas.

Libiran finished his Bachelor’s degree in Sociology at the University of Santo Tomas. He is
currently finishing his Master’s degree in Media Studies – Film at the University of the Philippines’
Film Institute. Tribu is his masteral degree thesis.