Kidlat Tahimik

An observation of post-colonial economic relations through the intersecting trajectories of two Filipino women: one preparing to leave her native island to work as a domestic in Europe, the other to return for good.

Set in the remote mountains of the Philippines, First Light sees the death of a young construction worker force an elderly nun to confront the muddied ethics of an institution she has dedicated her life to.

A young filmmaker is bent on recreating forgotten massacres from Philippine history, but when she begins shooting at a site where 1,000 men, women, and children were slaughtered, angry spirits are awakened and the lives of her team and the local villagers are put in peril.

A national artist delivers a powerful message urging us to embrace and celebrate our cultural heritage, highlighting its richness and greatness, and encouraging us to avoid being mere imitators of modern society.

Masato Hara made his directorial debut in high school in 1968 and achieved a reputation as a young prodigy. Many years later, he continues to make films and show his old experimental 'live-screening' films, but is saddled with massive debts. This film follows eight years in his life.

As the ultimate enfant terrible of Philippine cinema, avant-gardist Kidlat Tahimik refuses to settle on anything, whether it’s the telling of a colonial past, or any version of this film, which he’s been making and revising for nearly four decades. BalikBayan, which means “returnee” in Filipino, is partly about the homecoming of the historical figure Enrique of Malacca, a Malay who Tahimik first played and brought to the screen in 1979. As the slave of the 16th-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan he circumnavigated the Earth, before returning home as a free man. Old footage of Enrique, played by the young Tahimik, is mixed with the fictional story of a mysterious old man, played by the present-day Tahimik, and documentary footage of a contemporary artist community in Baguio, in northern Philippines. In this version, Redux VI, Tahimik continues his quest to reconsider the Philippines’ colonial legacy. Shot on 16mm (1979–1980s) and video (1990s–2017).

Magellan, the famous navigator, met his untimely death in the Philippines before he could circumnavigate the globe. Ironically, it was his slave and translator Enrique who most likely was the first to achieve the historic feat.

A machine capable of recording ideas directly from the mind is invented, and an out-of-work comedian suffering from depression uses it to learn if he still has the gift to make people laugh.

A silent film by Jet Leyco.

Documentary profiling the directors involved in the loose Philippine New Wave filmmaking movement.