Conversation with Lav Diaz, Part Two

In Part Two of our conversation with Lav Diaz, he discusses his entry into the commercial Filipino film industry and the pito pito films he made for Regal, and his attempts to make films with Dostoyevskian themes, and a consciousness about the Filipino psyche, the schism in the Filipino Left within the action and "bold" genres.



Duration: approximately 20 minutes
Format: MP3

Conversation with Lav Diaz, Part One

In Part One of our conversation with Lav Diaz, the Filipino filmmaker discusses his early formation and influences, and his activity as rock singer and work as journalist.

Duration: approximately 12 minutes
Format: MP3

Lav Diaz - an introduction

Lav Diaz has emerged as the leading filmmaker of the new Filipino cinema. Although he began in commercial scriptwriting for television, he started shooting an independent documentary when he arrived in the US. Still unfinished, he put that film on hold when he returned to Manila in the mid 1990s when he started making "commercial" films for Regal Studios. His first movie, BURGER BOYS is ostensibly a teen comedy of four guys, but becomes a self-reflexive film on the nature of the genre. His second film CRIMINAL OF BARRIO CONCEPCION is a parable of Filipino society told through the investigation into a kidnapping and murder. Made as a "pito pito" movie (seven day low budget film) for Regal Studios' Good Harvest film division, Diaz continued with NAKED UNDER THE MOON, supposedly a "bold" movie (featuring Claudia Koronel as a naked sonambulist) but in reality a discourse on the nature of faith, both spiritual and political. With these three films, Diaz established himself as a distinctive voice - maverick, articulate, intelligent. Not your usual hack filmmaker in a genre driven industry.

Diaz then went on to make BATANG WEST SIDE as an independent. Shot in the US, the film deals with the Filipino community in Jersey City. It features an impressive performance by Joel Torre as a Filipino working in the Jersey police force investigating the murder of a kid (Yul Servo in a noteworthy debut as the "batang") found on the streets. Diaz paints a portrait of a community eroding under drugs (shabu) and hidden skeletons from the past. At five and a half hours, the film becomes novelistic in nature, describing a state of mind as well as a state of the community. Diaz marked another return to the Philippines with a renewed attempt at "commercial" cinema with HESUS REBOLUSYONARIO, a film about dissent set in the not too distant future.

Most recently, Diaz has made EBOLUSYON, a 10 1/2 hour epic about a rural family in the Philippines as they struggle through the martial law years of Marcos to the People Power revolution of Cory Aquino. Diaz finds strength in the women who suffer and struggle, the grandmother and her daughters who represent the soul of the Philippines as the men drift into crime and degeneration. EBOLUSYON is the first masterpiece of cinema produced by the Philippines in the 21st century.

Listen to the conversations with Lav Diaz on this blog-site.

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