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FIGHT FOR US – A TRIBUTE TO LINO BROCKA
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In recent years, something like a cinematic “Nouvelle Vague” has evolved in Filipino cinema, with a new generation of young directors such as Lav Diaz, Brillante Mendoza, Khavn de la Cruz, Raya Martin or Sherad Anthony Sanchez. But the West has a cultural short-term memory and the great, influential filmmaker who marked the beginning of modern Filipino cinema, the cinematic and political pioneer, who, for years, enjoyed the status of an Asian Glauber Rocha or Pier Paolo Pasolini, is almost forgotten today. And thus it is up to the young and wild of Filipino cinema today to rediscover for us this central director of their country – Lino Brocka.
Lino Brocka, who was born in 1939 and died in a car accident in 1991, made some 70 to 80 films in the 20 years of his film career. The great majority were cheap, quickly shot B and C movies, a kind of consumer cinema, partly oriented on American models as well as popular Filipino comic series. Brocka himself never disdained or distanced himself from them. He did not want to, as he explained, leave the market to the imperialistic cinema, or, in his own words: “I am not interested in creating The Great Filipino Movie but in creating The Great Filipino Audience.”
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Fact is that, among this humus of films, Lino Brocka created a number of truly outstanding, independent works. A kind of realistic, rough, partly melodramatic, partly almost interventionist cinema, full of passionate rage and tenderness. Rage about the political and social conditions under the Marco regime, and tenderness for a people and its country. With works such as Insiang (1976) and Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim (1985), Lino Brocka ranks among the wonderful autodidacts and primitives of cinema to whom skillfulness and mannerism are unknown. They just know the urgency and the shortest way that leads to the human heart.
At the Viennale’s invitation, the aforementioned directors Khavn, Lav Diaz, Raya Martin and others have made a selection of Brocka’s most important works and will present it at this year’s festival.
Films
Stardoom, Philippinen 1971
Tatlo, Dalawa, Isa, Philippinen 1974
Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang, Philippinen 1974
Maynila: Sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag, Philippinen 1975
Insiang, Philippinen 1976
Ang Tatay Kong Nanay, Philippinen 1978
Ina Ka ng AnBayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim, Philippinen/F 1985ak Mo, Philippinen 1979
Bona, Philippinen 1980
Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim, Philippinen/F 1985
Signed: Lino Brocka, Christian Blackwood, USA 1987
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