Cinekatipunan This Week: IFCT Dance Films, ST Exposure, Bicol Xpress, Sabayton, Khavn, Cobangbang, Kidlat Tahimik

THIS WEEK ON CINEKATIPUNAN
June 11 to 16, 2006

Cinekatipunan/ mag:net continues with its
collaborations with the International Festival for
Cinema and Technology (ICTF) by featuring six dance
film's from the ICTF's program on Monday, June 11.

Cinekatipunan' s Independence Day program on June 12
features two documentaries by Bicol and Soutern
Tagalog-based video groups takes on one of the hottest
political topics today: the killings of Philippine
activists which have drawn condemnation from various
sectors and the international community.

Wednesday's program features visual artist Lena
Cobangbang's video-documentation of happenings at the
independent art space Big Sky Mind, while the program
on June 14 will feature a retrospective of quirky,
satiric productions by the Nerd World Cinema group,
curated by Jun Sabayton.

Khavn's Pugot will be the sole featured film on
Friday, June 14, Kidlat Tahimik's Turumba caps this
week's program on Saturday, June 15.

Held Mondays to Saturdays at Mag:net Café
Katipunan,Cinekatip unan screenings start at 5:00
PM. While the film screenings are free, viewers are
encouraged to make voluntary contributions for the
honoraria of the featured filmmakers. For questions or
comments about Cinekatipunan write to
sinag_haraya@ yahoo.com.

Cinekatipunan programs precede Mag:net Café's nightly
holding of Live Performances by well-known and
emerging bands and musicians. Mag:net Café is located
along Katipunan Avenue (fronting Miriam and Ateneo)
in Quezon City. For more inquiries please call 9293191
or visit www.magnet.com. ph. #

June 11 to 16 PROGRAM

June 11 (Monday)
DANCE FILMS from the International Festival for Cinema
and Technology (ICTF)
Curated by Marisa Cohen

Deborah VanSlet: RULES OF THE ROAD (Dance Film/Canada)
A dance video on hitchhiking ; a metaphor for the
calculated risk. The video expresses both the
exhilaration and the anxiety associated with taking a
chance and breaking out for parts unknown.
Deborah Kuleff : SALOMON (Dance Film/Australia)
A narrative dance piece that is a record of a woman's
journey to rediscover her past.

Vanessa Libertad Garcia: A TWO WOMEN ONE ACT (Dance
Film/USA)
A dramatic period piece featuring Latin dance

Lynn Shelton: MAGNETIZED (Dance Film/USA)
Music video for Laura Veirs

Fiona Cameron: SEA MAMMAL (Dance Film/Australia)
An atmospheric dance piece featuring a pregnant woman

Passia Pandora: BEYOND TIME (Dance Film/Canada)
"Weaving metaphor into dance, filmmaker Passia Pandora
explores the nuanced world of personal grief."

*Film synopsis from the ICTF's website at
http://www.ifct. org/ifctschedule dance.html

June 12 (Tuesday)
RATED SLEX: Works by Southern Tagalog Exposure and
Bicol XPress

Bicol XPress: HUSTISYA! (Justice!)
(Documentary/ 30mins/2006/ With English subtitles)
Hustisya! (Justice!) investigates the series of human
rights violations of the Macapagal-Arroyo regime in
the Bicol region. One of the cases highlighted by the
documentary is the murder of Pastor Isaias Sta. Rosa
by elements of the 9th Military Intelligence Batalion
of the Philippine Army. Hustisya! shows the
resoluteness of the people in their struggle to defend
their rights and livelihood amidst the violence
perpetrated by government forces.

• BikolXPress is a progressive and alternative media
group in the Bicol Region, Philippines. Visit their
site at http://bikolxpress. wordpress. com

ST Exposure: SULO NG BAGONG PELIKULA
(Documentary/ 36min/2007)
This video-documentary is a tribute to Bayan Muna (BM)
party list, which has faced black propaganda,
persecution, and killings in their pursuit of serving
the toiling and oppressed masses of the Philippines.
Produced by ST Exposure in cooperation with friends of
BM-Southern Tagalog.

• Southern Tagalog Exposure is an independent
multimedia collective of young artists and workers
based in Region IV. Alongside traditionally used
protest visual art forms such as street theater, mural
paintings, sculptural effigies, ST Exposure
appropriates multimedia (video/film, print, and radio)
technology as medium to advance social change by
arousing the larger society on pressing issues
concerning the marginalized and underserved sectors in
the region. (from www.stexposure. tk)

June 13 (Wednesday)
LENA COBANGBANG: Remembrance of Things Fast Becoming
Zombies
Presented under the Films by Visual Artists Programme
(curated by Poklong Anading)

Visual artist Lena Cobangbang presents collected raw
and unedited videos of her stint as an
artist-in-residence at Big Sky Mind from 2003 to 2004,
documenting "our former faces, our former selves from
a long time ago on our evolution/devolutio n to lofty
sobriety". These are videos that anyone can be
languorously drunk with. Good luck with the hangover,
though.

• Lena Cobangbang is a practicing artist, writer, arts
organizer, researcher and curator. Over the years she
has been cofounder and artist of different artist-run
spaces in the Philippines including the Surrounded By
Water, Big Sky Mind Artists Projects Foundation Inc
and the Future Prospects Art Space.

June 14 (Thursday)
NERD WORLD CINEMA RETROSPECTIVES
Curated by Jun Sabayton

Watch the early works of the masters of mockery and
parody in the history of philippine idiocracy: Ramon
Bautista's early works on video8 format and digital
video, R.A. Rivera's Collection of early shot film and
videos, and works by Ramil de Jesus and Tomas Matic, "
the original members of nerdworld cinema".

• Jun Sabayton is a director for television,
photographer, and production designer, and a mainstay
at the Mowelfund Film Institute’s roster of active
alumni. In early June 2005, he was proclaimed as Best
Production Designer for the film "Ebolusyon" by Lav
Diaz.

June 15 (Friday)
KHAVN: Pugot and Literature

PUGOT (Headlless)
(Philippines/ digital film/15 mins/2002)
Text by Lourd De Veyra
From http://www.kamiasro ad.com/khavn/ pugot.htm

Given the standards of The Twelve and Greaseman, Pugot
(Severed) emerges to be Khavn's most "conventional"
film, in comparison to his other works. Pugot shows a
Khavn seemingly more in control of his cinematic
kinetics.

This is a more compact, slightly straightforward story
of a relationship ending in macabre tragedy. But here
we still do not see a linear narration. Instead, the
film alternates between two parallel situations: a
room where we witness the freely improvised dialogue
between the lead character and his wife; then the
streets at the break of morning, where Khavn's camera
follows the image of a dejected, desultory man, long
hair cascading down his face and blood flowing down
his jeans. In the darkly moody opening credits, we see
a man holding a knife. It is implied that he castrated
himself, and the act of emasculation somewhat becomes
a central metaphor. When he wanders aimlessly through
the empty avenues, we hear the minimal piece of
musical scoring atmospheric electric guitar riffing
courtesy of legendary Pinoy rock axeman Jun Lopito.

34th Rotterdam International Film Festival, 2005/ 17th
Singapore International Film Festival, 2004/ 6th
Cinemanila International Film Festival, 2004/ New York
Filipino Film Festival, 2003

• KHAVN is a filmmaker, writer, and musician living in
Quezon City. As a film director, Khavn has made 16
features and more than 60 short films. He has been the
festival director of the .MOV International Digital
Film Festival, the first digital film festival in the
Philippines and a founding member of the Philippine
Independent Filmmakers Multi-Purpose Cooperative
(Indie Coop), an alliance of film professionals from
all parts of the Philippines. (Full text of Director's
Bio may be read at www.kamiasroad. com/khavn/ bio.htm)

June 16 (Saturday)
KIDLAT TAHIMIK: Turumba

Turumba (1984)
Set in a tiny Philippine village, Tahimik's Turumba
focuses on one family which traditionally made
papier-mache animals to sell during the Turumba
religious festivities. When they get a huge order, the
whole life of the family is changed, as Tahimik wryly
observes the "creation of the proletariat. "

• Kidlat Tahimik is a critically-acclaime d movie
director, writer and actor whose films are commonly
associated through their critiques of neocolonialism
with the Third Cinema movement. (More biographical
details on
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Kidlat_Tahimik)