Philippines

A short film made for “Venezia 70 – Future Reloaded.”

The day will come

We shall set sail from the mysteries of mythologies
And i shall be singing hymns to set you free
All of the effort I put into 70 Hours Of Diaz and I somehow forgot that he had a short in Venice 70: Future Reloaded…

Outside of experimental affair like Let Your Light Shine or Brakhage’s hand painted affair where the film is 100% dedicated to an aesthetic and that’s what the film must be judged on alone it’s hard to muster the same enthusiasm on a narrative level you would for a 77 second short that you would for say, a 9 hour film for example.
GrimsChild (letterboxd)Read More »

Ella meets Rico, a bus conductor, on her way to work. Even after finding out that Rico is married, she still pursues him. As their affair turns to adoration, it becomes harder for them to let go.Read More »

A Bajau midwife copes with the irony of her own infertility amid the deprivations of her gypsy community in Tawi-Tawi. A saga of island life stuck between the devil of passion and the deep blue sea of tradition.Read More »

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 »

Quote:
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 »

PLOT: Joey, a musically-inclined college student who falls for Ana, a married young woman vacationing from Manila. As their friendship starts blossoming into romance, the two slowly uncover startling truths about each other’s pasts.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 »