http://www.asianjournal.com/?c=107&a=29716
Anita Linda goes to her first international film fest
LOS ANGELES - Anita Linda is “very nervous and at the same time, very happy to be with us to present ‘Adela’ in Toronto,” director Adolfo Alix Jr. recently told us via e-mail about his and the actress’ attendance in the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). “It’s her first trip to an international film festival, so we hope she enjoys it. We also plan to take her to other film fests where ‘Adela’ will be screened this year.”
Fil-Canadians and cineastes can check out Alix’’s film starring Anita playing a woman whose solitary observance of her 80th birthday leads to a reflection on family, society and relationships, on Saturday, Sept. 5, 8 p.m. at AMC 9; Sunday, Sept. 7, 9:15 p.m. at AMC 2, and Saturday, Sept. 13, 3 p.m. at AMC 1.
The three As—Anita (who’s 83 in real life), Adolfo and producer Arleen Cuevas, who will be in Toronto from Sept. 4 to 9—will grace the first two screenings of “Adela,” which is part of the Contemporary World Cinema program. “Our sales agent, Ryan Kampe and Sylvain Tron of Visit Films, will also be there,” Adolfo volunteered.
Rewarding experience
“I’m very excited to see how people would respond to ‘Adela,’” the 29-year-old writer-director enthused. “It’s a special film for me because working on it was a very rewarding experience for everybody. Having Anita Linda as our lead actress was truly a pleasure. It’s our tribute film to her. When Noel Ferrer, Arleen and I decided to do this movie, we felt that Tita Alice (Anita) deserved a film that would show her at her best. She has been part of the industry for a long time. She worked with the country’s best directors—Lamberto Avellana, Gerry de Leon, Lino Brocka and Ishmael Bernal. As a young director, It was a learning experience to work with a legend like her.”
“Adela” also stars Iza Calzado (who was shooting Yam Laranas’ “The Echo” in Toronto during the TIFF last year), Perla Bautista, Ricky Davao, Angeli Bayani, Joem Bascon, Jason Abalos, Kenneth Ocampo and Arnold Reyes. The film is the seventh feature from the prolific filmmaker since his debut feature, “Donsol,” which was screened in various film festivals and was the Philippines’ official entry in the 2007 Academy Awards’ Best Foreign Language Film category. Since 2006, Adolfo also directed “Kadin,” “Tambolista,” “Nars,” “Batanes” and “Daybreak.”
Of his first participation in what has grown to become one of the world’s major festivals, the Makati native said, “We’re happy to have the international premiere of ‘Adela’ at the TIFF after opening the 2008 Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival. It’s my first time to have a movie screened in Toronto, although as a scriptwriter, two of my films were featured there before—Carlos Siguion-Reyna’s ‘Kahapon May Dalawang Bata’ in 1999 (which was one of the winners in the festival’s People’s Choice Awards) and Gil Portes’ ‘Mga Munting Tinig’ in 2002.”
Adolfo, a magna cum laude graduate with a degree in mass communications from the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, shared that he’s also looking forward to watching films in the Canadian event.
On the late Lino Brocka’s “Bayan Ko: Kapit Sa Patalim” being featured in the TIFF’s “Dialogue: Talking With Pictures” program, Adolfo said: “I think every Filipino filmmaker looks up to Brocka. He paved the way for the rest of us. I admire the honesty of his films and how he cared for the welfare of everybody on the set, as well as those in the film industry. He fought for what he believed in.” Another Pinoy director highlighted in the TIFF is Dante Mendoza, whose “Serbis” is an official selection in the Vanguard program.
Tribute
Adolfo revealed his own cinematic tribute to Brocka: “Right now, we’re in production of ‘Manila,’ a twin bill I’m doing with Raya Martin, which is inspired by Ishmael Bernal’s ‘Manila by Night’ and Brocka’s ‘Jaguar.’ Both stories will be topbilled by Piolo Pascual. I’m doing the re-telling of ‘Jaguar.’ I saw some of Brocka’s films before I started working on the project, and I felt that his best works—including ‘Bayan Ko’—are truly timeless. The issues he tackled then are still relevant now. He made simple films, but their messages still ring loud and clear!”
(inquirer.net)
Showing posts with label torontofilmfest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label torontofilmfest. Show all posts
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Friday, December 7, 2007
Noel Vera's Review of 'DEATH IN THE LAND OF ENCANTOS'
http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2007/11/kagadanan-sa-banwaan-ning-mga-engkanto.html
Land of the dead
Lav Diaz's Kagadanan sa banwaan ning mga Engkanto (Death in the Land of Encantos, 2007) might be the possible result if you took Spike Lee's 2006 documentary When the Levees Broke, recast it in Andrei Tarkovsky mode, stretched it to Bela Tarr length, added a dash of Abbas Kiarostami-like meta-cinema, sprinkled it with a few ideas from Mario O'Hara, and set it in the Bicol region. Possible, though I wonder if said bastard offspring will be anywhere near as strange as this.
It's ostensibly the story of one Benjamin Agusan ('Roeder' in the film's credits, full name 'Roeder Camanag'), a famed poet gone into some kind of self-imposed exile in Kaluga, a small town southwest of Moscow (Lav calls it an inside joke on behalf of his father, who was fascinated by Russia; the country's literature and sensibility has seeped into many of his previous films (particularly Serafin Geronimo: Kriminal ng Baryo Concepcion (Serafin Geronimo: Criminal of Barrio Concepcion, 1998), his version of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment)). He returns home to the vacation resort of Padang, near Legazpi City, in the wake of the devastation wreaked by Typhoon Reming (international name 'Durian')--a devastation made worse by typhoon-triggered lahar mudslides from nearby Mayon Volcano, burying homes and families alike (Padang was the worse-hit of the towns). He meets his friends Teodoro (Perry Dizon) and Catalina (Angeli Bayani), and is haunted by memories of former loves--Svita, a Russian beauty; Amalia (Sophia Aves), his longtime companion in Padang; his dead father, mother, sister.
It's an often seemingly shapeless, meandering tapestry, but Diaz is working on a vast canvas, five hundred and forty minutes long (his previous film Heremias Book One: The Legend of the Lizard Princess (2006) was about the same length; his Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino (Evolution of a Filipino Family, 2004) eleven hours long). Front and center on that canvas is Benjamin, the latest incarnation of one of Diaz's favorite characters, the restless wanderer--early examples included kidnapper-fugitive Serafin Geronimo (Raymond Bagatsing) and cuckolded husband Lauro (Joel Torre) in Hubad sa Ilalim ng Buwan (Naked Under the Moon,1999). Murder victim Hanzel Harana (Yul Servo) was a younger version seeking a family to belong to in Batang West Side (West Side Avenue, 2001); turns out Detective Juan Mijares (Joel Torre), the police officer investigating Hanzel's death, was a similarly lost soul. Reynaldo was an inscrutable figure entering and walking away from the lives of various families in Ebolusyon; the eponymous character in Heremias traveled in his oxcart full of handicrafts--alone, restless, almost entirely speechless, yet somehow able to give the impression that he was searching for something.
Benjamin, thought, unlike Reynaldo or Heremias is a poet as well as a wanderer. With Encantos Diaz has discarded the taciturn probinsyano (hick provincial) protagonist for the more loquacious small-town artist, the creative intellectual who chooses to live outside of Manila while practicing their craft. Which is something of a relief--the Diaz character is prone to long periods of contemplation and in an eleven or nine hour film (such as Heremias, Ebolusyon, and this), where they have little else to say between the long bouts of silence, it can sometimes make for difficult viewing. This time we have three verbose philosophers, able and willing to indulge in the one sport in which Filipinos demonstrate a natural, world-class ability to excel: the freewheeling discourse. Hamin (short for Benjamin), Teodoro, and Catalina gaze at the blasted landscape and hold forth on various subjects--love, art, death, God, the social and political condition of the Philippines, the difference between Filipinos and Russians, mosquitoes (even science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick and horror filmmaker David Cronenberg merit a quick mention). Diaz supplies all the dialogue, presumably; from personal experience I know him to be a world-class raconteur, able to talk to the wee hours of the morning on any subject imaginable. His extemporaneous monologue on pre-colonial Filipino sex in John Torres' Todo Todo Teros (2006) was a both illuminating and hilarious highlight of that film; here the skill provides enough meat to sustain the soul during our long journey through the film's narrative.
It helps that the film is full of poetry. Possibly taking a page from Mario O'Hara's masterpiece Pangarap ng Puso (Demons, 2000), where poetry and monsters haunted the imaginations of the protagonists, Diaz inserts verses here, there, and they function as lyrical commentary on and response to the film's themes and storyline (he had put poetry to memorable use once before, when Joel Lamangan gave an evocative reading of one of his pieces in Hesus Rebolusyunaryo (Jesus the Revolutionary, 2002)). Diaz at one point even has a kapre (a Filipino ogre) stalking his forest--you could almost imagine the creature wandering off from O'Hara's set and finding its way to Padang.
Sometimes the meandering nature of the discussions make for surprising turns, create startling connections. The three friends sitting in front of a lamp in utter darkness (it's night, and there's a brownout) talk about mosquitoes, how sliced raw onions sometimes drive them off, sometimes don't. Talk moves on to patterns in insect behavior, and Hamin tells of how writers and filmmakers seize on these patterns to tell postmodern stories of bizarre human activity (hence the mention of Dick, Cronenberg, and for good measure poet Ted Hughes). Catalina speaks out against such unfeeling fiction; she prefers to dwell in emotion and mystery. Talk shifts to the mysteries of the rosary, and how the Philippines seem to be mired in what rosary holders call a Sorrowful Mystery--the Death and Crucifixion stage, to be exact. Catalina's reply to this is a vow to tell the truth the best she can, through her art; Hamin asks (rather sardonically): is she willing to die for her art? Catalina sits and stares, not answering; the talk, having moved from evening dark to practical considerations to literary and cinematic themes, rose into a broad philosophical debate that peaked with a declaration of redemptive action, then with the mention of the ultimate darkness plunged back into the surrounding gloom (which, of course, is but a reminder of the larger gloom)--this being the shape of the film's past ten or so minutes.
Catalina often acts as foil, if not actual opponent, to Hamin's fatalism, her maternal and sexual life force countering his sense of despair. Against his insect behavior she responds with emotion and mystery; against his neglect of Amalia (who loyally cleaned and maintained his studio while he was in Russia, even insisted on speaking of him in glowing terms) she mischievously suggests that she'll mount an exhibit in tribute to the woman, displaying sculptures of Amalia's body parts, even private parts. There's sarcasm in Catalina's suggestion, but also something affirming: Amalia is gone, and this is a way of remembering her, keeping some portion of her vital, alive.
Against Mayon Catalina is all practical defiance; she acknowledges the volcano's beauty (it's considered the most perfect cone in the world), the same time she condemns the mountain for killing thousands of people over the years--is perhaps poised to kill thousands more (as Hamin notes, only one-fourth of the volcanic mud has been expended; the other three-fourths sits there, waiting for the next powerful typhoon). Knowledge of all that sludge waiting to bury her doesn't faze Catalina one bit; she just goes on working, taking mud from the volcano's slopes and using it for her sculptures, transforming it, taking material for potential death and giving it new life.
But the film's title speaks of death, not life; despite all of Catalina's (and Teodoro's, and Hamin's) artistic and creative powers, they can't stop Mount Mayon, or Typhoon Reming, or the Philippine government's more oppressive policies towards leftists (at one point it's mentioned that over 800 unarmed political activists have been killed since President Macapagal-Arroyo took power, a good portion of them Bicolanos). On a trip to Manila to find out what had happened to his mother (he knew she had died in a mental hospital, but didn't know the exact circumstances), Hamin again meets one of the paramilitary officers that had interrogated him, irrevocably changing his life (or so it seems).
As director Diaz shows more confidence in the black-and-white digital medium than he's ever shown before. He managed with a limited variety of lighting in Ebolusyon; in Heremias" he learned to create more expressive lighting schemes, sometimes even in inclement weather (weather he often created himself, using a water truck and fire hose). In this film he has sunlight waxing and waning as Catalina and Hamin talk in her outdoor studio (the light rhyming with the waning and waxing of the discussion); he has the three friends stage an entire debate (the aforementioned insect behavior patterns vs. emotion and mystery controversy) in the light of a single lamp; in Manila he has the camera sit low, like a political prisoner squatting on the floor, while it watches Hamin and his former torturer (their silhouettes vivid against the harsh Manila sunlight) talk about their past, present, future.
The last scene demonstrates an interesting series of directorial choices--why doesn't Diaz give us a clear look at Hamin's tormentor? Why does he allow the officer to play the role so melodramatically, like a low-budget action-movie villain? Was the conversation the event that triggered Hamin's suicidal downward spiral, or was it yet another symptom--a decisive one--of said spiral? Did Hamin imagine the whole encounter, this being his way of putting the blame on a concrete figure, his way of evading feelings of anger and grief and guilt at the apparent neglectful death of his mother?
The mother's departure from their home is a defining event in Hamin's life, and Diaz treats it as such with his camerawork. In a single shot the camera follows Hamin from behind as he walks up to a girl and boy playing among the trees, and we recognize the young Hamin playing with his sister Teresa; the man walks to the right, the camera following, till he's facing his childhood home. Suddenly a doctor in white coat emerges from the left of the house, pulling his mother along, walking past him. Hamin walks to the left, the camera panning to follow, just in time to catch both doctor and mother disappearing into the forest, then turns to look back at the home his mother left behind. This is Diaz's second foray into Jose Rizal territory, into the iconographic imagery of Rizal's famed novel Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not), his way in particular of evoking the figure of Sisa, the mother turned madwoman by the disappearance of her children and the tyranny of an unjust government. Diaz made this journey once before, with the story of Reynaldo's mother in Ebolusyon; fellow Filipino filmmakers Mario O'Hara, Lino Brocka, and Gerardo de Leon made the journey before him with their respective films (O'Hara's great Sisa (1998); Brocka's influential Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (You Were Judged But Found Wanting, 1974); De Leon's seminal Sisa and definitive Noli Me Tangere (1951 and 1961, respectively)). But where O'Hara, Brocka and de Leon's various Sisas were all helpless hysterics, singing folk songs when they weren't moaning after their missing children, Diaz's is the quieter kind, somehow kin to his gallery of wandering loners (you could say mother infected son with her temperament). She goes on to wander in and out of her son's consciousness, leading him to his inevitable fate.
Beyond all this, though--beyond the melodrama and dialogue--is Diaz's apparent relationship with the Bicolano landscape. In Ebolusyon and Heremias he seemed to disagree with the landscape, struggle against it, carefully angle his camera to capture the bleakest, least flattering aspect of an undeniably lush vista. Returning to the same region with Encantos (you might say the film is a sequel to the first two) the struggle has been resolved; Diaz's camera gazes at the treeless, houseless, blasted landscape with confidence, a sense of propriety, almost a sense of fulfillment. It's as if Diaz has discovered that the desolation left in the wake of Reming (with Mayon collaborating) is the perfect visual metaphor for the political and spiritual wasteland he feels was left in the wake of Philippine society (with the administration governing) in its downward spiral. This, Diaz seems to be saying to us, is the Philippines, nor are we out of it. One of the best--and most important--films to come out this year.
(First published in Businessworld, 11/27/07)
(Winner of a Golden Lion Special Mention at the Orizzonti (Horizons) Documentary Section of this year's Venice Film Festival)
Land of the dead
Lav Diaz's Kagadanan sa banwaan ning mga Engkanto (Death in the Land of Encantos, 2007) might be the possible result if you took Spike Lee's 2006 documentary When the Levees Broke, recast it in Andrei Tarkovsky mode, stretched it to Bela Tarr length, added a dash of Abbas Kiarostami-like meta-cinema, sprinkled it with a few ideas from Mario O'Hara, and set it in the Bicol region. Possible, though I wonder if said bastard offspring will be anywhere near as strange as this.
It's ostensibly the story of one Benjamin Agusan ('Roeder' in the film's credits, full name 'Roeder Camanag'), a famed poet gone into some kind of self-imposed exile in Kaluga, a small town southwest of Moscow (Lav calls it an inside joke on behalf of his father, who was fascinated by Russia; the country's literature and sensibility has seeped into many of his previous films (particularly Serafin Geronimo: Kriminal ng Baryo Concepcion (Serafin Geronimo: Criminal of Barrio Concepcion, 1998), his version of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment)). He returns home to the vacation resort of Padang, near Legazpi City, in the wake of the devastation wreaked by Typhoon Reming (international name 'Durian')--a devastation made worse by typhoon-triggered lahar mudslides from nearby Mayon Volcano, burying homes and families alike (Padang was the worse-hit of the towns). He meets his friends Teodoro (Perry Dizon) and Catalina (Angeli Bayani), and is haunted by memories of former loves--Svita, a Russian beauty; Amalia (Sophia Aves), his longtime companion in Padang; his dead father, mother, sister.
It's an often seemingly shapeless, meandering tapestry, but Diaz is working on a vast canvas, five hundred and forty minutes long (his previous film Heremias Book One: The Legend of the Lizard Princess (2006) was about the same length; his Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino (Evolution of a Filipino Family, 2004) eleven hours long). Front and center on that canvas is Benjamin, the latest incarnation of one of Diaz's favorite characters, the restless wanderer--early examples included kidnapper-fugitive Serafin Geronimo (Raymond Bagatsing) and cuckolded husband Lauro (Joel Torre) in Hubad sa Ilalim ng Buwan (Naked Under the Moon,1999). Murder victim Hanzel Harana (Yul Servo) was a younger version seeking a family to belong to in Batang West Side (West Side Avenue, 2001); turns out Detective Juan Mijares (Joel Torre), the police officer investigating Hanzel's death, was a similarly lost soul. Reynaldo was an inscrutable figure entering and walking away from the lives of various families in Ebolusyon; the eponymous character in Heremias traveled in his oxcart full of handicrafts--alone, restless, almost entirely speechless, yet somehow able to give the impression that he was searching for something.
Benjamin, thought, unlike Reynaldo or Heremias is a poet as well as a wanderer. With Encantos Diaz has discarded the taciturn probinsyano (hick provincial) protagonist for the more loquacious small-town artist, the creative intellectual who chooses to live outside of Manila while practicing their craft. Which is something of a relief--the Diaz character is prone to long periods of contemplation and in an eleven or nine hour film (such as Heremias, Ebolusyon, and this), where they have little else to say between the long bouts of silence, it can sometimes make for difficult viewing. This time we have three verbose philosophers, able and willing to indulge in the one sport in which Filipinos demonstrate a natural, world-class ability to excel: the freewheeling discourse. Hamin (short for Benjamin), Teodoro, and Catalina gaze at the blasted landscape and hold forth on various subjects--love, art, death, God, the social and political condition of the Philippines, the difference between Filipinos and Russians, mosquitoes (even science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick and horror filmmaker David Cronenberg merit a quick mention). Diaz supplies all the dialogue, presumably; from personal experience I know him to be a world-class raconteur, able to talk to the wee hours of the morning on any subject imaginable. His extemporaneous monologue on pre-colonial Filipino sex in John Torres' Todo Todo Teros (2006) was a both illuminating and hilarious highlight of that film; here the skill provides enough meat to sustain the soul during our long journey through the film's narrative.
It helps that the film is full of poetry. Possibly taking a page from Mario O'Hara's masterpiece Pangarap ng Puso (Demons, 2000), where poetry and monsters haunted the imaginations of the protagonists, Diaz inserts verses here, there, and they function as lyrical commentary on and response to the film's themes and storyline (he had put poetry to memorable use once before, when Joel Lamangan gave an evocative reading of one of his pieces in Hesus Rebolusyunaryo (Jesus the Revolutionary, 2002)). Diaz at one point even has a kapre (a Filipino ogre) stalking his forest--you could almost imagine the creature wandering off from O'Hara's set and finding its way to Padang.
Sometimes the meandering nature of the discussions make for surprising turns, create startling connections. The three friends sitting in front of a lamp in utter darkness (it's night, and there's a brownout) talk about mosquitoes, how sliced raw onions sometimes drive them off, sometimes don't. Talk moves on to patterns in insect behavior, and Hamin tells of how writers and filmmakers seize on these patterns to tell postmodern stories of bizarre human activity (hence the mention of Dick, Cronenberg, and for good measure poet Ted Hughes). Catalina speaks out against such unfeeling fiction; she prefers to dwell in emotion and mystery. Talk shifts to the mysteries of the rosary, and how the Philippines seem to be mired in what rosary holders call a Sorrowful Mystery--the Death and Crucifixion stage, to be exact. Catalina's reply to this is a vow to tell the truth the best she can, through her art; Hamin asks (rather sardonically): is she willing to die for her art? Catalina sits and stares, not answering; the talk, having moved from evening dark to practical considerations to literary and cinematic themes, rose into a broad philosophical debate that peaked with a declaration of redemptive action, then with the mention of the ultimate darkness plunged back into the surrounding gloom (which, of course, is but a reminder of the larger gloom)--this being the shape of the film's past ten or so minutes.
Catalina often acts as foil, if not actual opponent, to Hamin's fatalism, her maternal and sexual life force countering his sense of despair. Against his insect behavior she responds with emotion and mystery; against his neglect of Amalia (who loyally cleaned and maintained his studio while he was in Russia, even insisted on speaking of him in glowing terms) she mischievously suggests that she'll mount an exhibit in tribute to the woman, displaying sculptures of Amalia's body parts, even private parts. There's sarcasm in Catalina's suggestion, but also something affirming: Amalia is gone, and this is a way of remembering her, keeping some portion of her vital, alive.
Against Mayon Catalina is all practical defiance; she acknowledges the volcano's beauty (it's considered the most perfect cone in the world), the same time she condemns the mountain for killing thousands of people over the years--is perhaps poised to kill thousands more (as Hamin notes, only one-fourth of the volcanic mud has been expended; the other three-fourths sits there, waiting for the next powerful typhoon). Knowledge of all that sludge waiting to bury her doesn't faze Catalina one bit; she just goes on working, taking mud from the volcano's slopes and using it for her sculptures, transforming it, taking material for potential death and giving it new life.
But the film's title speaks of death, not life; despite all of Catalina's (and Teodoro's, and Hamin's) artistic and creative powers, they can't stop Mount Mayon, or Typhoon Reming, or the Philippine government's more oppressive policies towards leftists (at one point it's mentioned that over 800 unarmed political activists have been killed since President Macapagal-Arroyo took power, a good portion of them Bicolanos). On a trip to Manila to find out what had happened to his mother (he knew she had died in a mental hospital, but didn't know the exact circumstances), Hamin again meets one of the paramilitary officers that had interrogated him, irrevocably changing his life (or so it seems).
As director Diaz shows more confidence in the black-and-white digital medium than he's ever shown before. He managed with a limited variety of lighting in Ebolusyon; in Heremias" he learned to create more expressive lighting schemes, sometimes even in inclement weather (weather he often created himself, using a water truck and fire hose). In this film he has sunlight waxing and waning as Catalina and Hamin talk in her outdoor studio (the light rhyming with the waning and waxing of the discussion); he has the three friends stage an entire debate (the aforementioned insect behavior patterns vs. emotion and mystery controversy) in the light of a single lamp; in Manila he has the camera sit low, like a political prisoner squatting on the floor, while it watches Hamin and his former torturer (their silhouettes vivid against the harsh Manila sunlight) talk about their past, present, future.
The last scene demonstrates an interesting series of directorial choices--why doesn't Diaz give us a clear look at Hamin's tormentor? Why does he allow the officer to play the role so melodramatically, like a low-budget action-movie villain? Was the conversation the event that triggered Hamin's suicidal downward spiral, or was it yet another symptom--a decisive one--of said spiral? Did Hamin imagine the whole encounter, this being his way of putting the blame on a concrete figure, his way of evading feelings of anger and grief and guilt at the apparent neglectful death of his mother?
The mother's departure from their home is a defining event in Hamin's life, and Diaz treats it as such with his camerawork. In a single shot the camera follows Hamin from behind as he walks up to a girl and boy playing among the trees, and we recognize the young Hamin playing with his sister Teresa; the man walks to the right, the camera following, till he's facing his childhood home. Suddenly a doctor in white coat emerges from the left of the house, pulling his mother along, walking past him. Hamin walks to the left, the camera panning to follow, just in time to catch both doctor and mother disappearing into the forest, then turns to look back at the home his mother left behind. This is Diaz's second foray into Jose Rizal territory, into the iconographic imagery of Rizal's famed novel Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not), his way in particular of evoking the figure of Sisa, the mother turned madwoman by the disappearance of her children and the tyranny of an unjust government. Diaz made this journey once before, with the story of Reynaldo's mother in Ebolusyon; fellow Filipino filmmakers Mario O'Hara, Lino Brocka, and Gerardo de Leon made the journey before him with their respective films (O'Hara's great Sisa (1998); Brocka's influential Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (You Were Judged But Found Wanting, 1974); De Leon's seminal Sisa and definitive Noli Me Tangere (1951 and 1961, respectively)). But where O'Hara, Brocka and de Leon's various Sisas were all helpless hysterics, singing folk songs when they weren't moaning after their missing children, Diaz's is the quieter kind, somehow kin to his gallery of wandering loners (you could say mother infected son with her temperament). She goes on to wander in and out of her son's consciousness, leading him to his inevitable fate.
Beyond all this, though--beyond the melodrama and dialogue--is Diaz's apparent relationship with the Bicolano landscape. In Ebolusyon and Heremias he seemed to disagree with the landscape, struggle against it, carefully angle his camera to capture the bleakest, least flattering aspect of an undeniably lush vista. Returning to the same region with Encantos (you might say the film is a sequel to the first two) the struggle has been resolved; Diaz's camera gazes at the treeless, houseless, blasted landscape with confidence, a sense of propriety, almost a sense of fulfillment. It's as if Diaz has discovered that the desolation left in the wake of Reming (with Mayon collaborating) is the perfect visual metaphor for the political and spiritual wasteland he feels was left in the wake of Philippine society (with the administration governing) in its downward spiral. This, Diaz seems to be saying to us, is the Philippines, nor are we out of it. One of the best--and most important--films to come out this year.
(First published in Businessworld, 11/27/07)
(Winner of a Golden Lion Special Mention at the Orizzonti (Horizons) Documentary Section of this year's Venice Film Festival)
"DEATH IN THE LAND OF ENCANTOS" - Reviews/Words/Film Comment from Slovenia, Venice
Lav Diaz's latest film, “Kagadanan sa Banwaan ning mga Engkanto” (Death in the Land of Encantos), winner of Orizzonti—Special Mention Award, the first Filipino film to bag a Mostra (Venice) prize.
Venice Film Festival (In Competition and Closing Film—Orizzonti) , Toronto International Film Festival (In Competition—Visions) , Ljubljana International Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival 2008, Hong Kong International Film Festival 2008, Singapore International Film Festival 2008, FICCO 2008, Cinema du reel 2008 (part of a tribute to Lav Diaz)
Here are reviews and words of previous screenings in Venice and Slovenia .
From Slovenia (18th Ljubljana International Film Festival)
Danièle Huillet once notoriously remarked that cinephilia is also a lack of ambition. Presumably also with that warning in mind, Serge Daney later in his career as a film thinker redefined cinephilia (as it should be) as not just a relation to cinema, but a relation to the world through cinema. Cinema as perhaps the most complex and yet still straightforward means of human expression to understand or at least most accurately describe all the moral, social, political and aesthetical complexities of the worlds we inhabit and – more importantly – share. And it is with this understanding in mind that one should first approach and later ponder on Kagadanan sa banwaan ning mga Engkanto, the latest masterpiece (there really isn't any other word) by Lav Diaz, that most honest, hard working, heart wrenching, eye stunning and thought inspiring filmmaker at work today. Watching Kagadanan sa banwaan ning mga Engkanto thus surpasses a "mere" (nevertheless still absolutely unique) experience of cinema and becomes a fully fledged experience of life, an almost unbelievably sincere and courageous exploration into the heart of three grand existential matters: the meaning of love, the importance of hope, the redemptive power of art. All things of beauty--in a film of terrible beauty…
- - Jurij Meden, film critic, editor/Kino Magazine , Slovenia
Every new film signed by Lav Diaz means a celebration of film (as) art. In his latest adventure of images, gazes and words, Death in the Land of Encantos, he strokes again with enormous artistic power and unsurpassable poetic vision. He proved once more that art as such, irrespective of form it takes to realize its ideas, can be as dangerous weapon as any kind of firearms to fight against the terror of all kinds of oppression. His unique film expression, in which he took another large step forward to a new direction, is kind of experience that overshadowed great deal of filmmaking since Heremias. I can see or rather feel Death in the Land of Encantos as an invaluable gift, which will stay with me for a long time. At least because I'll be able to break trough all of the layers of its complex structure and countless meanings. Until then I'll enjoy the flashes of memories of this precious hours in film theatre, which flew too fast despite the contemplative rhythm of the narrative. Thus I could only reveal a deep debt of gratitude to get the chance to participate in such unique act of creativity and artistic responsibility.
- - Andrej Šprah, film publicist and writer from Ljubljana , author of several articles about Lav Diaz in Slovenia .
Nine hours were hardly enough. This experience was not just any kind of film experience. It could last 24 hours and it still wouldn't be enough. Because the story leads us into the land of prodigious thoughts, sometimes from everyday life, and rises up to the level of philosophy; in both instances, we were merged with ideas through elevated storytelling, which we are ravenously hungry of.
-- Petra Slatinšek , Slovenia
From Venice screening
Variety Review:
Lav Diaz's latest black-and-white digital marathon, "Death in the Land of Encantos " (clocking in at nine hours), unfolds in the devastated landscape left in the wake of Super Typhoon Durian, the worst storm to hit the Philippines in living memory. Placing a threesome of fictional characters amid the rubble, Diaz measures the aftermath of this natural disaster within the larger trauma of the islands' history. Plunging the viewer into an alternate time zone where distinctions between documentary and fiction, stasis and action slowly dissolve, pic confirms helmer's status as a brilliant but consummately non-commercial artist.
Unlike Diaz's other works, which were carefully constructed over time ("Evolution of a Filipino Family" was nine years in the making -- and 10 hours in the viewing), "Death" sprang fully grown from the ravages of the typhoon in Bicol, where Diaz had lensed several previous films. Thus, the documentary elements could not be described as "interpolated, " but rather form the very clay from which the drama (if such slight strands of narrative can be so termed) is molded.
Pic, with its themes of art and madness, is headlined with a quote from Rilke: "Beauty is the beginning of terror." Indeed, the region's Mayon Volcano -- which, under the onslaught of the storm, poured out mountains of rocks and debris, killed hundreds and buried whole towns -- remains one of the most majestic, perfectly cone-shaped structures in nature.
Pic traces fictional famed poet Benjamin Agusan (Roeder Camanag), newly returned to the Philippines from a lengthy stint in Russia . Two of his lifelong friends, a painter/sculptress (Angeli Bayani) and a fellow-poet turned farmer/paterfamilias (Perry Dizon) welcome Agusan home, and the trio starts to hang out together. The three, like everyone in the obliterated village of Padang , lost several close relatives to the natural calamity.
Specters from the past haunt the poet, including images of a beautiful naked woman who turns out to be the girlfriend he left behind who is now interred in his old studio lying somewhere beneath his feet.
Other visions haunting the poet are less explicable, like the nondescript street where the viewer finds himself stranded for stretches as Agusan stalks the Russian woman who left him after their child died. More disturbing still are scenes of his mother's psychotic breakdown and his father's desperate attempts to drive out the evil spirits with loops of twisted wire hung from trees. Madness stalks Agustan, as death and desolation lie over the land, the nude topmost branches of trees sticking up out of the ground where lush foliage once flourished. Diaz's stark black-and-white digital compositions frame a landscape so bleak and boulder-strewn, so empty of habitation that it is hard to believe the land was not barren from time primordial. Painful flashbacks to the region's past resurrect a lost Eden . The only thing more shocking than the extent of the damage is the ages-deep acceptance in the eyes of the survivors.
- -Ronnie Schieb, Variety, http://www.variety. com/review/ VE1117934956. html?categoryid= 31&cs=1
Film Comment:
There remains but one film to celebrate, among the greatest in Venice , and certainly the longest at nine-plus hours: Lav Diaz's monumental memoir to suffering, Death in the Land of Encantos , a modern mosaic cobbled together from the modest of means. In 2006, a typhoon devastated the region of the Philippines where Diaz shot much of his last two works--so the filmmaker went back and began filming, although with no clear game plan. Eventually he developed a narrative about a generation broken by their country's seemingly inescapable corruption: an assortment of the living dead wandering a landscape filled with the grief-stricken. Diaz's protagonist is yet another of the festival's schizophrenics, and manic-depressive in the bargain.
As in his 2005 Evolution of a Filipino Family, the filmmaker creates a massive tapestry, here incorporating documentary footage of typhoon survivor speaking out about government's neglect of their plight, as well as fragments from an unfinished short horror film shot in Zagreb in 2003. The latter concerns a lost tribe of Aswangs--ghouls of popular Philippine folklore--who have found a home in southeastern Europe . Little if anything at the Lido was as emotionally exhausting and exhaustive, as rich an experience and as crushing as Diaz's film.
-- Olaf Moller, Film Comment Magazine November-December 2007
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Death in the Land of Encantos Review - Variety.com
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117934956.html?categoryid=31&cs=1
Venice
Death in the Land of Encantos
Kagadanan sa banwaan ning mga engkanto (Philippines)
By RONNIE SCHEIB
A Produksyung Sine Olivia production in co-production with Hubert Bals Fund. (International sales: Produksyung Sine Olivia, Quezon City, Philippines.) Produced, directed, written, edited by Lav Diaz.
With: Roeder Camanag, Perry Dizon, Angeli Bayani, Dante Perez, Sophia Aves, Gemma Cuenca.
(Tagalog, some English dialogue)
Lav Diaz's latest black-and-white digital marathon, "Death in the Land of Encantos" (clocking in at nine hours), unfolds in the devastated landscape left in the wake of Super Typhoon Durian, the worst storm to hit the Philippines in living memory. Placing a threesome of fictional characters amid the rubble, Diaz measures the aftermath of this natural disaster within the larger trauma of the islands' history. Plunging the viewer into an alternate time zone where distinctions between documentary and fiction, stasis and action slowly dissolve, pic confirms helmer's status as a brilliant but consummately non-commercial artist.
Unlike Diaz's other works, which were carefully constructed over time ("Evolution of a Filipino Family" was nine years in the making -- and 10 hours in the viewing), "Death" sprang fully grown from the ravages of the typhoon in Bicol, where Diaz had lensed several previous films. Thus, the documentary elements could not be described as "interpolated," but rather form the very clay from which the drama (if such slight strands of narrative can be so termed) is molded.
Pic, with its themes of art and madness, is headlined with a quote from Rilke: "Beauty is the beginning of terror." Indeed, the region's Mayon Volcano -- which, under the onslaught of the storm, poured out mountains of rocks and debris, killed hundreds and buried whole towns -- remains one of the most majestic, perfectly cone-shaped structures in nature.
Pic traces fictional famed poet Benjamin Agusan (Roeder Camanag), newly returned to the Philippines from a lengthy stint in Russia. Two of his lifelong friends, a painter/sculptress (Angeli Bayani) and a fellow-poet turned farmer/paterfamilias (Perry Dizon) welcome Agusan home, and the trio starts to hang out together. The three, like everyone in the obliterated village of Padang, lost several close relatives to the natural calamity.
Specters from the past haunt the poet, including images of a beautiful naked woman who turns out to be the girlfriend he left behind who is now interred in his old studio lying somewhere beneath his feet.
Other visions haunting the poet are less explicable, like the nondescript street where the viewer finds himself stranded for stretches as Agusan stalks the Russian woman who left him after their child died.
More disturbing still are scenes of his mother's psychotic breakdown and his father's desperate attempts to drive out the evil spirits with loops of twisted wire hung from trees. Madness stalks Agusan, as death and desolation lie over the land, the nude topmost branches of trees sticking up out of the ground where lush foliage once flourished.
Diaz's stark black-and-white digital compositions frame a landscape so bleak and boulder-strewn, so empty of habitation that it is hard to believe the land was not barren from time primordial. Painful flashbacks to the region's past resurrect a lost Eden. The only thing more shocking than the extent of the damage is the ages-deep acceptance in the eyes of the survivors.
Camera (B&W, DV), Diaz; music, Diaz; production designer, Dante Perez; sound, George Vibar, Laurel Lee Penaranda. Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (Horizons), Sept. 8, 2007. (Also in Toronto Film Festival -- Visions.) Running time: 538 MIN.
Venice
Death in the Land of Encantos
Kagadanan sa banwaan ning mga engkanto (Philippines)
By RONNIE SCHEIB
A Produksyung Sine Olivia production in co-production with Hubert Bals Fund. (International sales: Produksyung Sine Olivia, Quezon City, Philippines.) Produced, directed, written, edited by Lav Diaz.
With: Roeder Camanag, Perry Dizon, Angeli Bayani, Dante Perez, Sophia Aves, Gemma Cuenca.
(Tagalog, some English dialogue)
Lav Diaz's latest black-and-white digital marathon, "Death in the Land of Encantos" (clocking in at nine hours), unfolds in the devastated landscape left in the wake of Super Typhoon Durian, the worst storm to hit the Philippines in living memory. Placing a threesome of fictional characters amid the rubble, Diaz measures the aftermath of this natural disaster within the larger trauma of the islands' history. Plunging the viewer into an alternate time zone where distinctions between documentary and fiction, stasis and action slowly dissolve, pic confirms helmer's status as a brilliant but consummately non-commercial artist.
Unlike Diaz's other works, which were carefully constructed over time ("Evolution of a Filipino Family" was nine years in the making -- and 10 hours in the viewing), "Death" sprang fully grown from the ravages of the typhoon in Bicol, where Diaz had lensed several previous films. Thus, the documentary elements could not be described as "interpolated," but rather form the very clay from which the drama (if such slight strands of narrative can be so termed) is molded.
Pic, with its themes of art and madness, is headlined with a quote from Rilke: "Beauty is the beginning of terror." Indeed, the region's Mayon Volcano -- which, under the onslaught of the storm, poured out mountains of rocks and debris, killed hundreds and buried whole towns -- remains one of the most majestic, perfectly cone-shaped structures in nature.
Pic traces fictional famed poet Benjamin Agusan (Roeder Camanag), newly returned to the Philippines from a lengthy stint in Russia. Two of his lifelong friends, a painter/sculptress (Angeli Bayani) and a fellow-poet turned farmer/paterfamilias (Perry Dizon) welcome Agusan home, and the trio starts to hang out together. The three, like everyone in the obliterated village of Padang, lost several close relatives to the natural calamity.
Specters from the past haunt the poet, including images of a beautiful naked woman who turns out to be the girlfriend he left behind who is now interred in his old studio lying somewhere beneath his feet.
Other visions haunting the poet are less explicable, like the nondescript street where the viewer finds himself stranded for stretches as Agusan stalks the Russian woman who left him after their child died.
More disturbing still are scenes of his mother's psychotic breakdown and his father's desperate attempts to drive out the evil spirits with loops of twisted wire hung from trees. Madness stalks Agusan, as death and desolation lie over the land, the nude topmost branches of trees sticking up out of the ground where lush foliage once flourished.
Diaz's stark black-and-white digital compositions frame a landscape so bleak and boulder-strewn, so empty of habitation that it is hard to believe the land was not barren from time primordial. Painful flashbacks to the region's past resurrect a lost Eden. The only thing more shocking than the extent of the damage is the ages-deep acceptance in the eyes of the survivors.
Camera (B&W, DV), Diaz; music, Diaz; production designer, Dante Perez; sound, George Vibar, Laurel Lee Penaranda. Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (Horizons), Sept. 8, 2007. (Also in Toronto Film Festival -- Visions.) Running time: 538 MIN.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Lav Diaz's DEATH IN THE LAND OF ENCANTOS
The Philippines’ Lav Diaz won the Special Mention Prize in the Horizons (Orizzonti) Documentary section of the 64th Venice International Film Festival for his nine-hour entry, “Kagadanan sa Banwaan ning mga Engkanto (Death in the Land of the Encantos).”INQUIRER EXCLUSIVE
Brad Pitt ‘stunned’ by Venice Best Actor win
TORONTO, Canada—“I was stunned.”
That was his reaction, Brad Pitt told this reporter, when he received the news that he had won the Best Actor award in the 64th Venice Film Festival for his performance in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.”
Pitt is here for the Toronto International Film Festival, where the same film is an entry.
The actor got the call from his producing partners who were in Venice for the awards night ceremonies just before his scheduled interview with this reporter’s group, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Pitt, who won for his portrayal of America’s most famous outlaw, said he was with his partner, Angelina Jolie, when the call came through.
He recounted: “My first reaction was, ‘Huh?’ I did not expect it. It’s a great honor … to be part of the list of actors who won … I’m still processing this.”
Pitt expressed elation at Cate Blanchett’s Best Actress prize for portraying Bob Dylan in the bold, experimental “I’m Not There,” which shared the Special Jury Prize with “La Graine et le Mulet.”
He said his triumph was especially rewarding since “The Assassination,” written and directed by Andrew Dominik, was plagued by production problems and delays and took three years to make.
Casey Affleck, who plays Robert Ford, said of his co-star’s victory: “It’s a well-deserved honor for Brad. He really put himself in the hands of Andrew. He could have said, ‘I can do this on my own.’ But he submitted himself as a ‘puppet’ of Andrew in the best possible sense of the word. He gave another dimension to Jesse James.”
Dominik said, “I am thrilled for Brad. Directing him and this movie was like playing cowboys and Indians but on a more sophisticated level.”
Ang Lee duplicated his Venice triumph two years ago for “Brokeback Mountain.” The Chinese director’s “Lust, Caution” won the Golden Lion top prize award.
The Philippines’ Lav Diaz won the Special Mention Prize in the Horizons (Orizzonti) Documentary section of the festival for his nine-hour entry, “Kagadanan sa Banwaan ning mga Engkanto (Death in the Land of the Encantos).”
Brian De Palma was declared Best Director for “Redacted,” a drama on the Iraq conflict.
Brian De Palma was declared Best Director for “Redacted,” a drama on the Iraq conflict.
++++++++++++++++++++
Lav Diaz competes in the Venice Int’l Filmfest
By RICKY LO
The Philippine Star
We haven’t heard from Lav Diaz in ages, haven’t we?
The "eccentric" director, who once dismissed entries in a Metro Filmfest as "stupid," has not only beaten lung cancer but also his colleagues to the 64th Venice International Film Festival (VIFF) in Italy which is listed as one of the Top 10 prestigious filmfests in the world.
Yes, Lav’s new film, Kagadanan sa Banwaan ning Mga Engkanto (Death in the Land of the Enchanted), is competing in VIFF which will run from Aug. 29 to Sept. 8. Kagadanan will also be the closing film of the Orizzonti Section of the filmfest.
This piece of good news was relayed to this corner by Funfare’s "international correspondent" Ferdinand Lapuz who is now in Toronto to prepare for the filmfest there in September and to cover the shooting of Echo, the Hollywood remake of Regal Films’ Sigaw by Yam Laranas who’s also directing Echo. Lapuz will do a diary-style story about Iza Calzado who’s starring in Echo with Jesse Bradford (Flags of Our Fathers) and Scottish actress Louise Linton.
Here’s an excerpt from the letter of invitation from Marco Miller, VIFF director, to Lav and Vanja Kaludercic, producers of the film retitled (for the VIFF) Death of the Poets (of which Lav is the scriptwriter, cinematographer and editor):
Dear Lav Diaz and Vanja Kaludercic,
I am happy to confirm that the film Death of the Poets by Lav Diaz is invited to the Orizzonti Section of the 64th Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica, to be held in Venice from August 29th to September 8th, 2007. The film will be premiered as part of the Orizzonti Competition and it will be screened as Closing Film on Saturday, September 8th.
Please note that the participation of the film in the Official Competition of the Mostra requires that the film will be presented in Venice as a world premiere... and that you will fill in the entry-form
I thank you for your cooperation and for contributing to the success of the 64th edition of the Mostra with the participation of your films.
I will be happy to welcome you all in Venice.
Best regards,
— MARCO MILLER
Director
Only two other Filipino films have so far competed in the VIFF, Manuel Conde’s Genghis Khan (which inspired a Hollywood movie) in the ’50s and Jeffrey Jeturian’s Tuhog in 2002.
Kagadanan was shot in Bicol and partly in Pila, Laguna, on a budget (including post-production work) of P500,000. Its running time is eight hours like Lav’s other film, Heremias Part 1. His previous films include Ebolusyon ng Pelikulang Pilipino, 11 hours; and Batang Westside, five hours, which was also shown in filmfests in Europe.
Kagadanan features a cast of non-stars, namely Roeder Camanag, Perry Dizon, Angeli Bayani, Sophia Aves and Gemma Cuenca.
Lapuz added in his report: "The 64th edition of the VIFF will be articulated according to the established outline: The Venezia 64 section will present the films competing for the Golden Lion; some of the most important works of the year will screen Out of Competition, while the Orizzonti Section is set up to provide a picture of new trends in cinema. The international short film competition Corto Cortissimo, is also in the line-up."
The members of the jury are all important figures in the VIFF’s recent history — Catherine Breillat, Jane Campion, Emanuelle Crialese, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Ferzan Ozpetek and Paul Verhoeven, with Zhang Yimou as chairman.
............................................................
Closing night honors for Lav Diaz film
LAV DIAZ'S "Kagadanan sa Banwaan ning mga Engkanto" ("Death in the Land of Encantos") has the closing night honors in a sidebar section of the coming Venice Film Festival.
The new work of the trailblazing Mindanao-born Filipino filmmaker, described in the festival's website as "one of the astonishing new South East Asian auteurs," is entered in the Horizons (Orizzonti) Documentary section of the prestigious festival.
Known for his audacious, marathon films such as "Batang Westside" and "Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino" ("Evolution of a Filipino Family"), Diaz is up against such directors as Jonathan Demme and Julian Schnabel. Last year, renowned director Spike Lee won the award in this category for "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts."
The festival on the Lido, which is celebrating its 64th year, described Lav's latest opus as "The story of the great Philippine poet Benjamin Agusan, who returns to his place of birth, Padang, which has now been destroyed. Agusan lived in Russia for seven years, on a study grant, teaching and leading workshops at the university. He continued to write poetry, and published two books which describe his sadness. He made several videos, fell in love with a Slavic woman, but immediately lost a child and almost went mad. He returned in order to bury his father, mother, sister and companion, to heal wounds, or create new ones, to reminisce and reflect, to confront Mayon, with its cruel beauty, his former muse and inspiration in his youth. He went home in order to face the country he had loved and hated so much: the Philippines. "
The festival runs from August 29 to September 8.
....................
Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:52:47 -0400
From: Marketing - TIFF
Subject: Films from the Philippines at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
FILMS FROM THE PHILIPPINES
Our commitment to films from the Philippines dates back over two
decades. For great directors like Lino Brocka, Toronto was a second
home. More recently we have premiered important digital films from
the new generation using this cutting edge technology to make truly
independent cinema.
2005 heralded an introduction to digital Philippine cinema with
Brillante Mendoza's first feature film The Masseur.
2006 brought Jeffrey Jeturain's Kubrador (The Bet Collector),
featuring a stunning performance by Gina Pareno; and Mel Chionglos
Twilight Dancers, which struck a balance between steamy drama and
serious social comment
2007 presents a unique opportunity to emerging and established
filmmakers in the Philippines to showcase some of the most exciting
contemporary cinema in the country today, as well as create
benchmarks in making films with limited resources in the digital
video format.
DEATH IN THE LAND OF ENCANTOS Lav Diaz, Philippines
After seven years, Filipino poet Benjamin Agusan (Roeder Camanag)
returns to his hometown of Padang after Super Typhoon Durian
devastates and buries it under mud. He wanders around the obliterated
village meeting old friends and lovers. Shot in rich black and white,
DEATH IN THE LAND OF ENCANTOS expresses an inexhaustible belief in
the regenerative power of both nature and art.
SLINGSHOT Brillante Mendoza, Philippines
An intimate glimpse into the lives of small time crooks in Manila
during a simultaneous election period and Holy Week.
PHILIPPINE SCIENCE Auraeus Solito, Philippines
Eight Philippine Science High School students come of age during the
politically volatile 80s, a time filled with excitement and fraught
with anxiety
....................
Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:52:47 -0400
From: Marketing - TIFF
Subject: Films from the Philippines at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
FILMS FROM THE PHILIPPINES
Our commitment to films from the Philippines dates back over two
decades. For great directors like Lino Brocka, Toronto was a second
home. More recently we have premiered important digital films from
the new generation using this cutting edge technology to make truly
independent cinema.
2005 heralded an introduction to digital Philippine cinema with
Brillante Mendoza's first feature film The Masseur.
2006 brought Jeffrey Jeturain's Kubrador (The Bet Collector),
featuring a stunning performance by Gina Pareno; and Mel Chionglos
Twilight Dancers, which struck a balance between steamy drama and
serious social comment
2007 presents a unique opportunity to emerging and established
filmmakers in the Philippines to showcase some of the most exciting
contemporary cinema in the country today, as well as create
benchmarks in making films with limited resources in the digital
video format.
DEATH IN THE LAND OF ENCANTOS Lav Diaz, Philippines
After seven years, Filipino poet Benjamin Agusan (Roeder Camanag)
returns to his hometown of Padang after Super Typhoon Durian
devastates and buries it under mud. He wanders around the obliterated
village meeting old friends and lovers. Shot in rich black and white,
DEATH IN THE LAND OF ENCANTOS expresses an inexhaustible belief in
the regenerative power of both nature and art.
SLINGSHOT Brillante Mendoza, Philippines
An intimate glimpse into the lives of small time crooks in Manila
during a simultaneous election period and Holy Week.
PHILIPPINE SCIENCE Auraeus Solito, Philippines
Eight Philippine Science High School students come of age during the
politically volatile 80s, a time filled with excitement and fraught
with anxiety
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