This is a collection of stills from the video that I recorded visiting the slums in Manila with my Black Magic 4k. This trip had the purpose of knowing the reality in Manila in order to re write a script based in this city. The slums are areas where people almost live on their own. They build their own houses, they manage to get very few electricity if any, and have no current water. The conditions in those areas is poorer that what we can experience in Europe or East Asia like Taiwan or Japan. However, the people I found there didn’t lose their dignity and learned to survive and carry on with their lives despite the harshness of the environment they they inhabit. For security reasons I visited those areas with a local movie producer. We visited the areas of Payatas and Mandaluyong. It was a shocking experience that make me feel I was like a voyeur in someone else’s house. It is shocking to see that people there have lost sense of privacy. I could freely walk with my camera in a space where doors were inexistent, people were sleeping at the eyes of others, cooking and even showering. Unexpectedly, the camera somewhat became a tool to connect with those locals, like an excuse to look for a smile and to exchange minimal words in Tagalog and break the ice. In general, they were shy but also willing to be filmed, like they felt it was chance to appear in someone else’s screen or movie. Our camera let me establish a short term boundary with them, I could very quickly know part of their personality by the reaction in front of my lens. A boundary that was soon broken forever. Their humbleness and generosity gave me a big lesson that I remember every time I see these images.