Showing This Week @ Cinekatipunan

SHOWING THIS WEEK AT CINEKATIPUNAN:

Monday, 4 December
MALAYSIAN INDIE SHORTS PROGRAM
To be presented by Sharaad Kuttan

A cross-section of contemporary and independently
produced Malaysian short films. Curated by Kuala
Lumpur-based filmmaker Mien Lor, a full time activist
who believes that filmmaking is at once personal and
political. She produces documentaries and social films
for www.komas.org and organizes the only human rights
film festival in Malaysia.
www.freedomfilmfest.komas.org

Tuesday, 5 December
Mark Gary: SANDALANG BAHAY (2005/Digital/ 98 mins)

The frayed strands holding together the Sandalang
Family is brought to breaking point by the father’s
affection for an orphaned boy. His wife witnesses a
molestation that pushes her to leave their idyllic
island with her three daughters in tow. Thirty years
later, the sisters journey back to San Donisio Island
with their dying mother and a past filled with secrets
and betrayals.

Mark Gary currently works as a director and DOP for
television commercials. He has also worked as DOP for
a number of feature films, and made several award
winning music videos and short films over the past
years. He is a senior mentor for the International
Academy of Film and Television in Cebu. Mark is a
graduate of Fine Arts from the University of the
Philippines and studied film at the University of
California, Los Angeles. He has won awards in
Communication Arts, Print and How Design. In the
Philippines, Mark has won MTV's Best Asia Music Video
and NU107 Rock Award's Best Director for Music Video
for doing Eraserhead's "Fruitcake." He won Best
Cinematography during the Manila Short Film Festival
for "Bodibil." In 2003, he got his start in the
Philippine film industry as DOP for "Anghel sa Lupa"
starring Dina Bonnevie and "Kung Ako Na Lang Sana"
with Sharon Cuneta and Aga Muhlach. Mark Gary's first
feature film as a director, Sandalang Bahay (The
Leaning House) had its European premiere in Fribourg, Switzerland in March 2006 and its U.S. premier in
April at the Newport Beach Film Festival in
California.

Wednesday, 6 December
Khavn dela Cruz: SQUATTERPUNK (2006/Digital) with live
music by “The Brockas”
With FPJ’s ISLA PUTING BATO (1977/35 mm), Quay
Brothers Short films

Fresh from winning the grand jury prize at the
recently concluded Cinemanila International Film
festival, Squatterpunk tackles the life of youth in
urban poor communities living the punk lifestyle. The
film is set in the slums of Manila where law
enforcement is rare. The camera follows the lives of
the youth as they scavenge the garbage beach for a
living while still managing to play around. Images of
riot and poverty are set against the background of a
loud musical score that makes the film wild, pulsating
and certainly punk. Yet despite the exploitative
connotations of its title, "Squatterpunk" casts a
tenderly poetic eye at the squalor of Philippine
society.

Tagged by international film fest directors with the
labels “enfant terrible of Philippine Cinema” and “Che
Guevarra of the Digital Revolution”, Khavn dela Cruz
is certainly one of the most revolutionary talents
working in Philippine cinema today. His films have
been exhibited and won awards in prestigious film
festivals in the country and abroad. He has been the
festival director of the .MOV International Digital
Film Festival 2002. With his independent film company
Filmless Films, he continues to add number to the
already prodigious body of work that is considered as
cinematic gem by both local and international film
communities.

Thursday, 7 December
Raya Martin: ANG ISLA SA DULO NG MUNDO
(2004/Digital/ 109 mins)

22-year old Raya Martin is at the forefront of a
resurgent cinematic movement in the Philippines. On
the strength of his atmospheric short film “Bakasyon”
(The Visit), his feature-length documentary on the
Itbayat tribe of Batanes “Ang Isla Sa Dulo ng Mundo”
(The Island at the End of the World), and his graduate
thesis “Infancia En Las Islas De Filipinas, Sin
Fecha.” (Childhood In the Philippine Islands,
Undated.), he was selected to participate in the 11th
edition of the Cannes Cinefondation residency for
first and second time filmmakers.

Profile by Alexis Tioseco. Reposted from
http://sea-images.asef.org

Friday, 8 December
Kidlat Tahimik: SINONG LUMIKHA NG YOYO? SINONG LUMIKHA
NG MOON BUGGY?
(1982/16 mm)

Kidlat Tahimik was born Eric de Guia on October 3,
1942 in Baguio City. His mother is Virginia de Guia, a
former post-war mayor of Baguio and a crusader today
for issues that are not always popular. Eric studied
grade school at the Maryknoll Convent School between
1947 and 1954, graduated later from the St. Louis
University Boy's High School (1954-1958), and finished
speech drama at the University of the Philippines in
Diliman (1958-1963). He pursued his graduate studies
at the Wharton School University of Pennsylvania, and
took on the research consultancy for the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in
Paris between 1968 and 1972.

Then his world changed.

Following a process of deconstruction, the wiry,
long-faced economist tore up his Wharton diploma and
cleansed himself between 1972 to 1975 in order to
pursue an artist's life. His resumé does not explain
how the imposition of Martial Law in 1972 affected his
deconstruction.

He describes 1975 up to the present as his life's
period of restructuring. He fathered the KKK - his
boys Kidlat de Guia, who is now a television and film
director; Kawayan de Guia, who is Kidlat Tahimik's
blond, blue-eyed artistic wildfire in Baguio; and the
youngest, Kabunyan.

But it was 1977 that introduced Kidlat Tahimik to the
world. His cinematic dissertation called Mababangong
Bangungot (Perfumed Nightmares) won the international
film critics jury prize at the Berlin Film festival,
as well as the Catholic Jury Prize and the Ecumenical
Jury prize. "These awards reinforced Kidlat's
commitments to stay out of the commercial film
industry's sex and violence formulas," his resumé
states.

Profile by Malou Guieb and Vincent Cabreza. Reposted
from http://www.homegrownart.net

Saturday, 9 December
Ditsi Carolino: RILES (2002/Digital/ 70 mins)
With Tudla Productions: SA NGALAN NG TUBO
(2005/Digital/ 38 mins)

From the first astonishing shots of men, women and
children casually moving their belongings from the
railroad tracks seconds in front of an onrushing
train, Ditsi Carolino makes the viewer feel completely
at home in what should be the most alien of
environments. Focused on a couple, the film settles
into the rhythm of life along the tracks in Manila
with an intimacy that never feels intrusive. Riles is
a humbling and indelible portrait of human dignity,
resilience and community.

Ditsi Carolino started as an NGO worker documenting
human rights issues in Mindanao with photographs and
slideshows. Since attending a film workshop in 1991,
she has been directing documentaries which have been
screened, and won awards, at festivals here and around
the world. Her focus is on the lives and struggles of
ordinary people. She made Dapit-hapon sa Tambakan
(1993), and the multi-awarded films Minsan Lang Sila
Bata (1996), Mula sa Pabrika Hanggang Fukuoka (1999),
Riles (2002) and Bunso (2004).

Tudla Productions: SA NGALAN NG TUBO
(2005/Digital/ 38 mins)

November 16, 2005, seven people died at the
picketlines of Hacienda Luisita, Philippines.
Millworkers and farmworkers of the sugar refinery and
plantation owned by one of the wealthiest and oldest
landed families in the country went on strike. Their
demands were met with a volley of bullets from police
and military forces. The story of Hacienda Luisita is
a story of social injustice in the Philippines. The
massacre demonstrates once again that the path to a
better future means a life-and-death struggle for the
toiling masses.

Tudla Productions is a non-profit group of filmmakers,
writers and cultural workers that work hand in hand
with different people’s organizations in the
advancement of their advocacies and of various
community development projects. Since its founding in
2003, Tudla has produced seven educational video
documentaries and a news feature publication that
highlight the struggle of ordinary Filipinos. These
works have been distributed in communities, schools
and workplaces in the different regions and even to
Filipino communities abroad.

Held Mondays to Saturdays at Mag:net Café Katipunan,
Cinekatipunan screenings start at 5:30 PM. All films,
unless otherwise indicated, have English subtitles.
While the film screenings are free, viewers are
encouraged to make voluntary contributions for the
honoraria of the filmmakers. 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 email
magnetcafekatips@yahoo.com.ph or visit
www.magnet.com.ph.