Dalagang Bukid

[3] Angelita (Atang de la Rama), a young flower vendor who works in front of a cabaret named Dalagang Bukid, and poor law student Cipriano (Marceliano Ilagan) are in love.

However, Angelita is forced by her parents to marry a wealthy loan shark, Don Silvestre, as they need money to pay for their gambling habit and other vices.

[4] Prior to Dalagang Bukid, several foreigners had directed and produced films in the Philippines, including Edward Meyer Gross's Vida y Muerte del Dr. José Rizal (1912) and Albert Yearsley's Walang Sugat (1912).

[6] Inspired by the foreign filmmakers, photo studio owner José Nepomuceno became interested in moving pictures and purchased equipment from Gross's Rizalina Film Manufacturing Company.

"[8] Despite its earlier negative review, a contemporary article published in The Citizen associated Dalagang Bukid with the rise of a national consciousness in cinema.

He draws attention to the "central role and symbolic value" of Filipino national hero José Rizal, whose portrait hangs in the home of the film's heroine Angelita.

Deocampo highlights, however, that the declaration fails to consider the Spanish colonial influence on the source material and subsequent film.