Lino Brocka

Macho Dancer is a 1988 Philippine film, directed Lino Brocka, which explores the harsh realities of a young, poor, rural gay man, who after being dumped by his American boyfriend, is forced to make a living for himself in Manila’s seamy red-light district. Based on a true story, the film frank depiction of homosexuality, prostitution, drag queens and crooked cops, porno movie-making and sexual slavery, and drugs and violence caused the Filipino government censors to order extensive edits of the film, forcing an uncensored edition to be smuggled out of the Philippines and shown to a limited number of international film festivals. This print is now part of the permanent collection at The Museum of Modern Art in New York [Images in the Dark: An Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Film and Video. 1994. Raymond Murray]Read More »

This is the story of Miguelito, his estranged mother Auring and the quest for justice against a powerful politician. After ten years of suffering in jail for a crime she did not commit, Auring cries out for two things – justice and her son back in her arms. Bravely she faces her powerful oppressors led by the formidable town mayor who also happens to be the father of her son. Being the first film Brocka directed since his highly publicized arrest and detention, Miguelito is one’s typical soap opera set in a political backdrop that portrays the social condition of the time (Letterboxd)Read More »

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Bona, released in 1980, is perhaps his best–regarded work. The title character is a young, starstruck schoolgirl (played by Nora Aunor) who falls in love with an ageing actor (Phillip Salvador) and becomes his servant. She waits on him loyally in his decrepit shack, receiving nothing for her labors but the privilege of being his slave. When the actor decides he has had enough of her and attempts to toss her aside, Bona retaliates in a wholly unexpected, utterly justified fit of violent rage. As with many of his other independently made films, Bona reveals Brocka’s uncanny ability to join the personal and the political, to locate the overarching social statement in an intimate, deeply individualized gesture. Read More »

Set during the post-Marcos regime in a remote village of Dolores, chronicles the life of Jimmy Cordero, a political prisoner who have just been freed from prison after the decline of the Marcos dictatorship. From his revolutionary past, he got himself into human rights activism following his prison release. He and his wife’s brother once conducted a fact-finding mission to Dolores only to find out the terror brought about to its residents by the Orapronobis, a government-backed anti-communist paramilitary troop deployed in the town of Dolores.Read More »

PLOT: A fascinating portrait of life in Manila’s corrupt, teeming and polluted urban jungle, Manila in the Claws of Light tells the story of Julio, a 21-year-old fisherman who arrives in the Filipino capital looking for his girlfriend. Immediately robbed of what little cash he has, he scrabbles to survive, drifting through a number of temporary jobs, while wandering the city in search of his beloved.Read More »

KONTROBERSYAL is one of the classic masterpieces of acclaimed stage and film director, Lino Brocka, in the historical period of the 80’s. A story set in the glitter and glamour of showbiz world. Behind the bright lights, fabulous costumes and larger-than-life sets, real lives are broken and shattered for the hunger for fame and the thirst for money. Karina Daluz (played by Gina Alajar) was blinded by the ill promise of success offered by her producer Mers Madsen (played by Charo Santos). Her walk toward the path to stardom entailed her sanity and corrupted her soul. Her innocence was replaced by wickedness and her once good-natured self, has become the demon that she feared. No love that is forever, no hope to discover for all the people living in KONTROBERSYAL.Read More »

In 1971, Director Lino Brocka directs “Stardoom” for Lea Productions, his “indictment of the corruption of values in the local movie industry.” It tells of a frustrated and ambitious stage mother, Toyang (played by Lolita Rodriguez), who forces her son, Joey, into a showbiz career and ultimately ends up in a tragedy. 70s teenage heartthrob, handsome, clean-cut and the boy-next-door type, Walter Navarro starred as the son, Joey Galvez, who at the peak of his stardom was gunned down by his erstwhile girlfriend Nina (Lotis Key), in a fit of jealousy and anger.Read More »

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Lino Brocka’s adaptation of Mars Ravelo’s “komiks” melodrama about a successful businessman trying to hide his homosexuality.Read More »

Kapit was well covered by media, as any competition film in Cannes is covered, except that the rave reviews were numerous. Festival reports had it that, of the critics, only a minority found the film’s “constant agit prop a little hard to digest, however much they sympathized personally with Brocka’s politics.” Le Quotidien’s Gerard Lefort felt that the famous Costa-Gavras could stand comparison with Lino Brocka! Brocka garnered enough inter­ national prestige in the 1984 Cannes event to put Philippine cinema an—foremost in Brocka’s priorities— Philippine politics in the limelight.Read More »