Heads will Roll is an imagined conversation between Lapulapu and Ferdinand Magellan, looking back on their pasts. Imagery of cannibalism has been used as ways of supporting national leaders. On the Spanish side colonialism of the Philippines was justified through characterising Filipinos as 'primitive cannibals’. The sensationalist bent of the Spanish travel narratives was a clever epistemological device to initiate colonialism, to bring God and stop human flesh eating. Whilst on the Filipino side, tribal chief and national hero Lapulapu who killed conquistador Ferdinand Magellan, is celebrated by some as having eaten Magellan.

The 2019 Spanish CGI film Elcano and Magellan: The First Voyage Around the World depicts Lapulapu as the villain. Heads will Roll challenge’s dominant narrative associated with the coloniser and the colonised through a surreal conversation. Both characters argue for the justification of their actions. Drawing from the transubstantiation as an act of incorporation - bread and wine become the flesh and blood of Christ but also his words - the fictional discussion between the characters becomes a Hegelian mutual eating and assimilation act. They each speak their own native language. No subtitles are provided for the audience, only a script, resisting the temptation to make access easy for English-speakers - a language that has been enforced upon the Philippines.

Surrounding them are depictions of Filipino landscapes, taken from Elcano and Magellan, but with people removed. Place digitally around them like stage sets, they emphasise once again how the story of the Philippines is constructed by Western staging. Both characters are based on CGI versions of my own face. I myself am half Spanish and half Filipino, a living legacy of this violent interaction of nations. The CGI of my film refers to the animation of Elcano and Magellan as well as being a reminder of how truth is hard to arrive at in tellings of history, and that stories of the Philippines have been manipulated with false narratives.