LIST: Filipino films to be shown at New York’s Museum of Modern Art

MANILA, Philippines — Several Filipino-made films will be shown at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in June.

Eighteen iconic films of 14 Filipino directors, which include Brillante Mendoza, Lav Diaz, and Erik Matti, among others, will be screened at MoMa as part of its presentation, a survey of Philippine film from the Third Golden Age of the Philippine cinema.

The Third Golden Age of the Philippine Cinema is known as the period following its golden age in the 1950s. The second was from the 1970s to the early 1980s.

The film exhibition was organized by Department of Film Associate Creator La Frances Hui. Moma also acknowledge members of Cinemalaya Tess Rances and Vicky Belarmino as well as Gil Quito, Huei-Yin Chen and intern Dalin Lu for helping in the project.

MoMa described the Filipino-made films, which portrayed a variety of social issues, as an “exceptionally unique vibrant movement” with cinematic statements.

“The Philippines’ current wave of sustained creativity is unusual in its diversity of genre and style, audacious formal experimentation, and multiplicity of personal, social, and political perspectives,” the museum said.

“From Lav Diaz’s minimalist tales rendered at epic lengths or Brillante Mendoza’s gritty realist portrayals of the margins of society, to Raya Martin’s experimentation with storytelling and form, Ditsi Carolino’s stark documentaries following the disenfranchised, and Erik Matti’s riveting thrillers, contemporary Filipino filmmakers push cinematic boundaries and consider subjects as varied as colonial legacy, a decade of martial law, drugs, crime, corruption, fertility, and migrant workers,” the statement added.

The list of the 18 films in the exhibition and its directors appear below.

• Motherland (2017) – Ramona S. Diaz

• Expressway (2016) – Ato Bautista

• Norte, the End of History (2013) – Lav Diaz

• Ma’ Rosa (2016) – Brillante Mendoza

• The Woman in the Septic Tank (2011) – Marlon Rivera

• Gemini (2014) – Ato Bautista.

• Aparisyon (Apparition) (2012) – Isabel Sandoval

• On the Job (2013) – Erik Matti

• Bunso: The Youngest (2005) –Ditsi Carolino

• Engkwentro (Clash) (2009) – Pepe Diokno

• Serbis (Service) (2008) – Brillante Mendoza

• Independencia (2009) – Raya Martin

• BalikBayan #1: Memories of Overdevelopment Redux VI (1979–2017) – Kidlat Tahimik

• Manila (2009) – Adolfo Alix Jr, Raya Martin

• How to Disappear Completely (2013) – Raya Martin

• From What Is Before (2014) – Lav Diaz

• Thy Womb (2012) – Brillante Mendoza

• Transit (2013) – Hannah Espia

The Filipino-made films will be shown at the MoMa New York on June 1 to 25. The audience will also have a chance to meet the directors in a scheduled question and answer forum. 

—Rosette Adel