SHE'S KNOWN FOR her buildings, her shoe collection, her extravagant tastes - and for the thousands of human rights abuses that occurred under her husband's 20-year rule.
She was a tyrant's wife, but still managed to win powerful friends in the west. The political horrors of Ferdinand Marcos' dictatorship are well documented, but how much is known about Imelda Marcos as a person?
That thought struck Filipino filmmaker Ramona Diaz in 1993, when she interviewed Imelda Marcos for part of her graduation film, Spirits Rising. Diaz, a US-based expatriate who grew up under Marcos' rule, thought Imelda Marcos' life would make fascinating subject for a documentary - in the unlikely event she'd allow the cameras to follow her around.
Diaz contacted Marcos again, and she quickly got back to her with an answer that surprised the filmmaker. Yes, that would be fine, she said.
Five years later - the time it took to raise the money to shoot the film - Diaz was allowed unlimited access to Marcos for a month. Diaz finally finished her documentary this year, and Imelda recently premiered at New York's Film Forum to rave reviews. The film was due to open all over the Philippines next month - but a Makati court on Thursday issued a 20-day restraining order on its screening after Marcos charged it would damage her image.
'My idea was to sit down, talk to Mrs Marcos, and hear what she was thinking,' Diaz says by telephone from Los Angeles, where the film is playing at the city's film festival. 'I was interested to find out what she had to say for herself.'
