From Manila to Cannes - Phillipine DIY
During the last five years Philippine cinema has shown an ever growing presence in the international festival circuit at hard hitting festivals from Rotterdam and Vienna to Berlin, Venice and Cannes. Directors such as Lav Diaz, Raya Martin, Brillante Mendoza and Khavn de la Cruz all make films cheaply, digitally and with an almost unprecedented speed and artistic vision. But besides sharing the same means of production (as well as distribution) their films are, even though theyre highly personal in style and tone, all defined by a raw melange of punk, poetics and politics.
Most of the DIY films we see (both now and in the past) seem to come from the USA - with great inspirational ideas on how to maximize a film's market potential and form the perfect hybrid distribution strategy. But nowhere on this planet has the digital filmmaking revolution been any more significant than in the Philippines. This is why this year's special focus series at CPH:DOX takes a look at New Philippine Cinema.
Armed with digital cameras and an unshakeable credo that filmmakers are here to make films - under any circumstances and with whatever means they've got -, the latest crop of Philippine filmmakers have created a living film culture with an international reach. For even if Philippine films are made in almost no time and with very few means, this year alone, their films could be seen at the big, prestigious film festivals in Berlin, Cannes, Venice and Rotterdam. Therefore we are proud to present two directors and one producer who will discuss the means and reasons for their cinematic revolution and not least the consequences for the way we think and make films in general.
Khavn de la Cruz, the frontman of the digital new wave, will talk about the opportunities opened up by the digital revolution and about making films of an international scope, while remaining faithful to both one's personal artistic ambitions and to the unique characteristics of one's home nation. He is accompanied by the producer Arleen Cuevas (of among other films Raya Martins Now Showing, which was shown this year at the prestigeous La Quinzaine des Réalisatuers section at Cannes and which is also shown at this years fetival, and Sherad Anthony Sanchez, the director of 'The Woven Stories of the Other'.
The discussion will be moderated by Thure Munkholm, programme editor of CPH:DOX.
AutohystoriaDirector: Raya Martin
Digital memories from dreams and reality
At the center of Raya Martin's beautiful 'Autohystoria' is the execution of the revolutionary Bonifacio brothers in the Philippine mountains in 1897. The Bonifacio brothers were leading figures in the Philippine revolution for independence from the colonial power Spain, and among the founders of the freedom movement Katipunan in 1892. Tragically, it was the Philippines' first independent president, Emilio Aguinaldo, who gave the orders for the brothers to be executed. Instead of giving us a traditional take on history, the film approaches its subject matter through a series of dramatic allegories, which the director himself has called "a collection of digitalised memories from dreams and realities".
Years When I Was a Child OutsideDirector: John Torres
Fragmentary film clips about the loss and recovery of a father
'Years When I Was a Child Outside' is John Torres's latest film after 'Todo Todo Teros', which was extremely well received at last year's festival. The political paranoia thriller has this time been replaced by the autobiographical diary excerpts, but the pulsating stream of images has remained intact. This time round, Torres focuses on his relationship with his father - and the fact that the latter has had another, illegitimate family on the sidelines. Based on bubbly family pictures, the film takes a close look at the unique image of the father, and Torres analyses his way forward through his own story - and the further away he escapes, the better he seems to get to know his father.
Bontoc Eulogy
Director: Marlon E. Fuentes
Cultural arrogance and the marketing of the myth of Western development are unveiled in Marlon E Fuente's 'Bontoc Eulogy' as the real basis for organising the well-known World Fair Expos. St Louis World Fair in 1904 was no exception. Here, hundreds of so-called primitive peoples became an evidence for the high standards of the West. No less than 1100 Filipinos were shipped to the country and put on show as living exhibits. Fuente's point of departure is exactly this exhibition. With the help of archive materials, old photographs and documentary detective work, he tries to track down a Filipino Markod-figure, which was shipped to St. Louis, never to be returned. The film's theme also becomes an allegorical search for the lost traces of the director's forefathers, but strongest of all is the highly topical subject of an immigrant's feeling of undervalued identity.
The Muzzled Horse Of An Engineer In Search Of Mechanical Saddles
Director: Khavn de la Cruz
Trembling, surreal punk-poetry with a live soundtrack
A worker with a well-developed fetish for horses is fired - and this kicks off a surreal journey through the streets of Manila. In 'The Muzzled Horse of an Engineer In Search of Mechanical Saddles', Khavn de la Cruz employs his usual visual energy to explore an inner psychological landscape - and at the same time plays freely with all the symbolic and cultural connotations that are traditionally associated with horses. Punk and poetry are complemented by Khavn's own music, which is especially the case at CPH:DOX, where Khavn himself will provide the live soundtrack for the film.
The Woven Stories of the Other
Director: Sherad Anthony Sanchez
Communist rebels in political video poetry
In 'The Woven Stories of the Other', political video poetry meets classical documentary and pure fiction. Using amateur actors in the leads, the director Sherad Anthony Sanchez embarks on a dialogue with Philippine history in a story, which takes place among communist rebels. And the result is just as hallucinatory and dreamy, as it is beautiful. Time and space gradually disintegrate in discrete psychological suggestions and in pictures of wonderful marshes and picturesque mountain landscapes, which remind us of the distinctive style of the Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The entire film is accompanied by strong political undertones, which seem to aim at inventing a new kind of uncorrupt communism.
When Timawa Meets Delgado
Director: Ray Gibraltar
A documentary comedy about the American dream in Filipino
"Well actually, m'am, I want to serve humanity" is the homosexual and extremely exhibitionist literature professor Timawa's über-correct answer to the question "Why do you want to be a nurse?" But his answer his delivered as kitschy comedy and with tongue in cheek - and in its own way it sets the tone for Ray Gibraltar's in many ways unusual film. Using the encounter between two Filipinos - and their shared ambition of being accepted at a school for nurses - as a starting point, Gibraltar soon drops the basic premise in order to let the film explore comical and extreme detours, like Timawa's cross-cut ode to a pig, or his opposite, the self-proclaimed filmmaker Deldado's family in far-away USA. Under the irony lies a harsh critique of an unequal world, which the Philippine city of Iloilo comes to represent.
Jesus the Revolutionary
Director: Lav Diaz
A fable about the future, built on a worn-down historic foundation.
The Philippines in the year 2011: the military junta has assumed control over the country and is fighting a savage and chaotic battle for power against muslim separatists, communist insurgents and rivaling military factions. In the midst of it all, the anti-hero Hesus (Mark Anthony Fernandez) is struggling to survive, while he juggles with his parallel careers as an academic, musician, poet and sniper. The visionary and internationally acclaimed director Lav Diaz approaches his apocalyptic fable like a paranoid, psychological thriller, shot with a documentary nerve and the worn down reality of the Philippines as raw material in the space of only three weeks, and for the equivalent of half a million kroner. A political parody and a deeply inventive film with an originality that will make most people sigh with admiration.
Slingshot
Director: Brillante Mendoza
A hand-held tour through slums at breakneck speed.
A breakneck pace and intense, conflict-ridden destinies mark Brillante Mendoza's handheld portrait of Manila's slums, which won the Caligari Prize at this year's Berlin Film Festival. Manila provides the backdrop of the film, but it's a digital camera that provides the atmosphere. It moves everywhere and at such a fast pace, that it makes sense to talk about a visual drive-by-shooting. 'Slingshot' is a real guerilla film, made independently and on a shoestring. It has already garnered admiration all over the world and is legitimately compared with films such as the Brazilian 'City of God' and Khavn's 'Squatterpunk' (which is shown in this year's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' series). 'Slingshot' shows the eerie and heart-rending reality of an impoverished megacity, where coincidence decides who is allowed to wake up to yet another day without a future, and who should die without having experienced peace of mind.
http://www.cphdox. dk/d1/ft. lasso?s=2008124&aa=899&e=1
