From What Is Before
A New Horizons regular, Lav Diaz (Florentina Hubaldo, CTE; Century of Birthing; Norte, the End of History) returns with a twist to a style he had abandoned. Turns out the color selection in Norte... was a one-time thing and black-and-white dominate in the Philippine director's latest film. Aside from the characteristic long takes and endemically coarse reality of the Philippine countryside, Diaz's film is surprisingly overtly political. The director took his camera north to find people who live as they lived in the early 1970s. That is when the military invaded the tiny provincial communities. When Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law the ancient local world order crumbled. Harbingers of the apocalypse fill this monumental five-and-a-half hour fresco, e.g. burning homes, frenetic dancing, madness and blood. And when the apocalypse comes, only the lament for an older beautiful world remains.
awards
Locarno IFF 2014 – Golden Leopard, FIPRESCI Prize, Don Quixote Award, Junior Jury Award, Swiss Critics Boccalino Award for Best Actress; São Paulo IFF 2014 – Audience Award for Best Foreign Feature Film; World Premieres Film Festival 2014 – Grand Festival Prize, Best Ensemble Performance
Lav Diaz
He was born in 1958 in the Philippines and graduated from the Mowelfund Film Institute. He is a director, screenwriter, producer, DOP, editor, who is also an active poet, musician and actor. His lengthy black-and-white films, ranging from four to even 11 hours, encourage comparisons to Béla Tarr and Theo Angelopoulos. He intends the films to oppose cinematic escapism, thus the social and political pangs of the Philippines are recurring themes.
Selected filmography
2004 Ebolusyon ng isang pamilyang Pilipino/ Evolution of a Filipino Family
2007 Kagadanan sa banwaan ning mga Engkanto/ Death in the Land of Encantos
2008 Melancholia
2011 Siglo ng pagluluwal/ Century of Birthing
2012 Florentina Hubaldo, CTE
2013 Norte, koniec historii/ Norte, hangganan ng kasaysayan/ Norte, the End of History