’Kingmaker’ Explores Marcos Family Return to Power

many ver addiction to excess. This documentary is called The Kingmaker, and it is a interesting I mean, Jason, I've been talking about it since we've watched um pieces of it. But I do want to point out to that Bloomberg has provided some support financial support for the film. Louren Greenfield is director of the film. She's based in Venice Beach, California. Made her way to our New York studio. Welcome to Bloomberg. Thank you so tell us a little bit about this well.

I began filming in two thousand fourteen and never expected the project to take five years. Um. It actually began with a Bloomberg article by a journalist named William Miller about this animal island that I had never heard of. People know Amalta Marcos from the shoes, but this was

the kind of ultimate extravagance. She depopulated an island in the South China Sea of its indigenous population and brought in animals from Africa, and four generations later there they've been inbred basically because no new animals, they have no support, no vets, no um not. The parents were gone, Ferdinand and Amelda that brought them there. So the story began with that. But what happened was Bong Bong, Amelda's son, ran for the vice presidency and they were as a family,

they were kind of in the political wilderness. When I began, no journalists thought they had a chance. But as he began to be to gain steam and became the front runner, the election story really took over the narrative of the film, and so what began as a kind of historical film about this kind of crazy extravagance turned into a present day political story about the connection between wealth and power and the possibility of rewriting history, which we've seen repeated.

I feel like around the globe, how timely right and what's so amazing about this? And I've been very fortunate, you know, Lauren and I have gott know each other a little bit over the past years because of the Bloomberg connection. And this is, as you say, such a different film and incredibly timely in so many ways. And even when you just watched the trailer, you think, oh my god, this is and I say this a little bit glibly but meaningfully, this is I mean, it's just remarkable.

So when did you realize that the story had taken such a sharp term. Was it around the election or was there some reporting that you did that sort of turned that light on for you? It was really um, Well, the first stage was seeing how they were really trying to come back to power. How Emelda was a congresswoman, which I thought in the beginning was just kind of a respectful thing to do to the former first Lady, but gradually realized that it was part of a bigger plan.

Many of her kids were in politics, and when she first when when he when Bong Moong first decided to run for vice presidency, Bill Mallore at The Bloomberg Reporter said he doesn't have a chance, and that's what people thought. So I think the first real change was when he became the front runner and it looked like he could really take it. As um they were gaining steam, though the past started dredging up into the present. People did not the young people did not remember martial law, they

didn't remember the ills of the regime. And the Marcos were really going about rewriting history through UM their narrative, which was being kind of repeated in social media and UM. As this started to kind of take hold, it became clear that they could effectively come back. Lord. What did you find most revealing in the process and in and what about your access to the family, I mean the access. I got the original introduction to Mrs Marcos through William Miller,

and she was very open, very candid. That was one of the things that was so appealing about her as a character. She UM, she was so charismatic, and I think she really liked being on camera and having a chance to tell her story as she saw it. UM. What I realized, though, and the other turning point for me, was she was an unreliable narrator to say the least. That's kind of an understatement, and her view of history and the marcus Is contributions did not align with any

historical or journalistic accounts or first person accounts. So I started bringing in other people into the story. Truth tellers, whether they were so survivors of martial law or like Andy Bautista, who was head of the commission that was going after the ill gotten wealth and then became head of the elections, and these and even the president noy Noya Kino and these people kind of gave relief or or a check to the stories that the Marcus were telling.

And I think in the movie you gradually see what the truth that contrast right between what their perception or her perception was and then what was going on in reality. I thought was just told so well in the film. And I think the surprising thing is in the past people have just kind of mocked Mrs Marcos, like she's delusional, or she's in her own world, or you know, laughed

at her laughable. But what you see in this film is that she was able to really persuade a big part of the electorate of her point of view, and that she I mean, she's the only one laughing now as they're back to power, which is a little bit like how people didn't take Trump seriously in the beginning. Yeah, there are some echoes. For sure. We'd be remiss if we didn't help folks understand where this fits into sort of your filmography because people know you from Generation Wealth,

especially Queen of Versailles. I mean you have undertaken now for quite some time, an examination of wealth and power. How does this fit into sort of the rest of your catalog, as I mean, in some ways it's grown out of my past work, out of Generation Wealth, but

in other ways it's really a departure for me. I think she was always a Melta Marcos was always an iconic reference in my work on wealth, the shoes and this kind of materialism, and and when I first started the Animal Island was like, uh, kind of the ultimate extraog. And I was interested in inequality. I was interested in the consequences of wealth intended and unintended. But I had ever done a political story before, and that was really a departure for me. Um I really kind of got

interested in the connection between power and wealth. And there was a kind of a follow the money story in this where we see how the money allowed that that was not repatriated to the Philippines allowed them to come back in a place where there is corruption, you can buy votes, and you can buy influence, and you can use it to to to kind of disseminate your social media message. Jason and I were talking when we kicked off that there's a generation that doesn't even remember her.

I'm just thinking here, certainly in the United States, it is definitely a Mussie. Thank you so much for coming by, Thanks for talking with us about it. Yeah, the movie is The Kingmaker. It's out in theaters on November eight, and we'll air on Showtime in Greenfield. Is the Filmmaker again? The movie is called The Kingmaker. I'm going to pull

it back to the magazine too. It's all about the year ahead of Bloomberg Business Week, but it also talks about power, whether in Washington, whether it's among the big tech companies. Right now. I mean, all of this is on everybody's radar, certainly among politicians, among individuals, as part of our conversation, big conversation, and rightfully so.