Lino Brocka

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 »

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Lino Brocka’s “Ang Tatay Kong Nanay” (My Father, My Mother, roughly, 1978) is the master filmmaker’s one collaboration with the near-universally acknowledged King of Philippine Comedy, Dolphy (Rodolfo Vera Quizon). Screen legends working with famed filmmakers rarely if ever create sure bets; it’s something of a surprise, then that the resulting picture from these two is so straightforwardly poignant, laced with just enough humor to wriggle past one’s defenses.Read More »

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Manila: In the Claws of Darkness is the most impressive of his films noirs, made with bows to the American cinema, to Italian neo-realism and to his own country’s tradition of star-driven melodramas, but with the force of a third-world director determined to say something about his own society.It is the richly romantic but realistic odyssey of a boy named Julio, who arrives in Manila from the country to search for his childhood sweetheart. The darkness of the title refers to the capital itself, which, said Brocka, exerts an invisible force on the lives of its people.Read More »

Poldo, a lowly security in a publishing firm, dreams to be rich. He becomes the personal bodyguard to his employer’s son, Sonny, when he impresses the latter with his courage and skills during a quarrel where Poldo defended Sonny. Poldo gets a taste of his boss’ carefree and extravagant lifestyle and thinks that he accepts him as a friend. In one of the nightclubs they frequent, Sonny is smitten by dancer Cristy and aggressively pursues her despite a warning from San Pedro, the movie director with whom Cristy has an affair. When they chance upon each other, Sonny and San Pedro fight. Poldo comes to his boss’ rescue and guns down San Pedro. In subsequent circumstances, Poldo would soon arrive at a bitter realization. As he could not see in Sonny the benefactor that he pictured him to be, Poldo finds himself alone, abandoned and betrayed. Read More »