Discover and experience more from the world-renowned filmmaker of Balangiga: Howling Wilderness, Khavn Dela Cruz as he streams some titles from his filmography for a limited time only. Dubbed as Cinerado: This is Not a Film Festival, Khavn showcases 17 of his films on YouTube channel for free.
TATLONG ARAW NG KADILIMAN: ZERO
Synopsis: The prequel to “Three Days Of Darkness” (Tatlong Araw Ng Kadiliman) starring Katya Santos, Gwen Garci, and Precious Adona. Khavn draws on the Book of Revelation for one of the most frightening phenomena prophesied to happen. Three girls are trapped in their home as the Three Days of Darkness descend on the Earth and they must cope and try to fend off the demons that have come to take them. A chilling vision of God’s Wrath or of people imposing God’s Wrath on one another, the film frightens with its questions as much as it does with its visuals.
KAMIAS: ALAALA NG PAGLIMOT
Synopsis: “Kamias is a green sour fruit. It is also the road where I live. This is what the video camera remembers. My amnesia lies in between.”
BAHAG KINGS
Synopsis: A group of tribal leaders from the jungle search the city like a hard rock band. Or is it a rock group looking for the jungle? The filmmaker was arrested for the film, together with his half naked kings. Funny, unpolished, musical and (hence) also a little bit political.
LIHAM NG PAG-IBIG MULA SA CAMEROON
Synopsis: Love Letter (for solo piano) explores notions of the individual subject framed against concepts of intimacy and sexual relations.This is the story of Yna Tioseco and Angelo Bohinc. Yna is a young Amerasian doing graduate studies in cultural studies, literary theory and criticism. Angelo is a wealthy fifty year old American who used to be a big-time ad man. Their lives converge in a coffee shop a neutral ground between the world of the academe and that of advertising. A relationship ensues. Intimacy builds. And then intimacy breaks. And finally, intimacy kills.One of them falls out of love, the other stays in it. One of them leaves the house, sets off alone, to recover the self. One leaves the continent, and searches for the self in order to terminate it.How, indeed, is a relationship formed and what apparatus holds it together? What happens to the individual that enters a relationship? What becomes of him/her after leaving it? How does intimacy evolve into indifference? In what way is death the ultimate act of love?
DESAPARADISO
Synopsis: Ibong Adarna meets Martial Law. A dark valentine to a turbulent period in Philippine history, sans the political commentary. A retelling of a famous Filipino magical tale minus the magic.
MONDOMANILA
Synopsis: Tony knows nothing but tough times, living in the bleak circus of the slums he calls home amongst denizens of the underworld: the crippled pimp, the lonely housewife, the neighborhood gay and his macho father, the prostitutes, the small-time politician, and the Yankee pedophile. This is his story and the story of the world he lives in: a hopeless, closed-in decrepit world gone to seed.
ULTIMO
Synopsis: A tribute-cum-reformulation-in-film of Philippine National Hero Jose Rizal’s poem “Mi Ultimo Adios,” Khavn’s “Ultimo: Different Ways of Killing a National Hero” explores identity and nationhood as viewed through the lens of a truly post-colonial individual. Ultimo is a 90-minute black-and-white silent film, with scenes from the director’s meanderings in La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain) interspersed with lines from Rizal’s poem, which was written a day before the hero’s execution in 1896. Waiting, ambivalence, and re-membering —– themes usually tackled in literature and criticism —– are investigated through a series of images: the mundane elevated to the affective through a sensibility that does not shy away from pushing the boundaries of art. This version is scored by a post-kundiman duet of guitar and banduria.
KOMMANDER KULAS
Synopsis: Kommander Kulas wakes up several times and dreams that he is a giant cockroach. He wakes up for the last time and sees there are stitches on his chest: Someone has stolen his heart during the night. So along with his best and only friend, The Poor Carabao, he ventures the long and unwinding road of Kamias, which spans the vast landscape of the Philippines, to look for his missing heart. Kommander Kulas, the official fool, meets several hearty characters in the tarot card deck of his journey. Lovesong numbers are scattered throughout the film.
BURYONG
Synopsis: Sixty-seconds of a life. Bored to death. What is life? A series of moving stills. “Buryong” captures 93 minutes-in-a-life, Philippine-time. From mundane chores, to work, to scenes of domesticity, to killing time, we are asked to observe and meditate on these silenced moments.
PAHINGA
Synopsis: BREATHER is dedicated to the late Leonardo de la Cruz. Khavn’s camera accompanies his father in the last months of his life and captures hospital scenes, family dinners and intimate moments in the form of a poetic diary.
PUGOT
Synopsis: Dina breaks up with Taga, and Taga cuts off his dick and walks the mean streets of Manila. Khavn’s controversial lovelorn, lovelorn fourth feature is the first of many times he will tussle with the sticky subject of true love, the bloody mess that it really is and the lengths we go to in its name.
LUALHATING PAMBANSA
Synopsis: “Philippine Bliss” tells the tale of six modern-day Filipinos living in a single neighborhood, a housing project called B.L.I.S.S., started by the former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos during the Martial Law era. These people, whose names allude to familiar characters from Jose Rizal’s novels, narrate their private yet vivid stories of loss, longing, and Third World despair, all intersecting in a public arena that is their packed community. Theirs are lives seen with an oftentimes comic eye, unabashedly bound by a wild and brimming sense of Filipino hope.
PHILIPPINE NO WAVE
Synopsis: The most prominent internationally-acclaimed and wildly divergent digital filmmakers from the Philippines answer questions on filmmaking and beyond. From humble beginnings to first adventures and unforgettable experiences, to influences and philosophy and process, to what the power of film is, to the true meaning of independence, to what the future holds for cinema, locally and worldwide. Khavn throws the questions at them and gamely answers them himself. And the results are at turn informative and insightful, inspirational and illuminating, revealing how diverse the landscape of Philippine Cinema has become. And how much of it are a shared love and a shared art in which you are complicit.
TATLONG ARAW NG KADILIMAN
Synopsis: Kimberly (Katya Santos), Michiko (Gwen Garci), and Isabel (Precious Adona) are trapped inside their house when the apocalyptic prophecy happens. Khavn draws on the Book of Revelation for one of the most frightening phenomenon prophesied to happen. Three girls are trapped in their home as the Three Days of Darkness descend on the Earth and they must cope and try to fend off the demons that have come to take them. A chilling vision of God’s Wrath or of people imposing God’s Wrath on one another, the film frightens with its questions as much as it does with its sounds and visuals.
ASWANG IN QC
Synopsis: The Pinoy vampire – a bloodthirsty Aswang – stalks the streets of Quezon City in search of fresh victims while attempting to stay one step ahead of a dangerous human predator. Gruesome and grisly murders are our entry point into the psyche of the Aswang of Quezon City. More a meditation on the workings of a disturbed mind than a detective thriller, it nonetheless shows us a cat and mouse mind game. We watch and squirm in terror as the Pinoy vampire strikes again and again.
ANG PAGLILITIS NI MANG SERAPIO
Synopsis: A beggar is put to trial for taking an orphan girl under his wing. Paul Dumol’s beloved classic one-act play, considered by many as the first modernist play, maybe more than 40 years old but in its inevitable transition to film in the hands of one of its most ardent fans, filmmaker Khavn, its meditations on justice and equality remain disturbingly, eerily relevant.
TAONG GRASA
Synopsis: Juxtaposes a day in the life of a greaseman (street bum) and a yuppie, and watches as their worlds cross and their lives collide to devastating effect. This avant-garde experimental feature is grounded in a non-dialogue driven narrative, as musical improvisers provide the ethereal soundtrack to the hyper-imagery. (Lav Diaz)
You can watch and support some Filipino films on MOOV, Cinema Centenario’s movie-on-demand virtual cinema platform.
