COUNTRIES Philippines, France, Portugal, DenmarkYEAR: 2022 RUNTIME: 187 min
DIRECTED BY: Lav Diaz
LANGUAGE(S): Tagalog
SUBTITLES: English
CAST: John Lloyd Cruz, Ronnie Lazaro, Shamaine Centenera-Buencamino
SCRIPT: Lav Diaz
PRODUCED BY: Bianca Balbuena, Bradley Liew, Jean-Christophe Simon, Joaquim Sapinho, Marta Alves
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Larry Manda
EDITED BY: Lav Diaz
SCREENINGS
SYNOPSIS
How do the best police officers fare in a country where authorities turn them against their own people? Badly, if you look at Hermes Papauran. The police academy instructor is lost in violent outbursts as an aggressive rash eats away at his body. When he leaves Manila for a cure in his coastal home village, his former teacher is released from prison. And he has a score to settle with him.
Exceptional director Lav Diaz (Nuremberg Human Rights Film Award 2015 for NORTE) unfolds the full range of his incomparable style: a unique combination of genre love and narrative experimentation, clear political edge and absolute artistic freedom. All in expressive black-and-white visual compositions whose calm contrasts with the seething temperaments of his characters.
Lav Diaz
Lav Diaz, born in 1958, is one of the most renowned filmmakers from the Philippines. He is especially notable for the length of his work, his films not being governed by time but by space and nature. His work mostly deals with the social and political struggles of his motherland. Since 1998 he has directed eighteen films, and won numerous international awards. In 2015 he won NIHRFF’s International Competition with his epic film NORTE: THE END OF HISTORY.
Criminal of Barrio Concepcion (1998), Burger Boys (1999), Naked under the Moon (1999), West Side Kid (2002), Jesus, Revolutionnary (2002), Evolution of a Filipino Family (2004), Heremias, Book One: The Legend of the Lizard Princess (2006), Death in the Land of Encantos (2007), Melancholia (2008), Woman of the Wind (2011), Century of Birthing (2011), Florentina Hubaldo, CTE (2012), Norte, The End of History (2013), From What Is Before (2014), A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery (2016), The Woman Who Left (2016), Season of the Devil (2018), The Halt (2019), Genus Pan (2020), When the Waves are Gone (2022)
PRODUCTION: Epicmedia (hello@epicmedia.ph), Films Boutique, Rosa Filmes (comunicacao@rosafilmes.pt), Snowglobe
WORLD SALES: Films Boutique (info@filmsboutique.com)