Upcoming specials of captured imagination within a frame that will make you forget you’re seated in a theatre
Mark your calendars from November 16 to 22 with QCinema’s 10th International Film Festival! Featuring a restored collection of classic flicks, timeless pieces of two legendary filmmakers are expected to be back on screen.
From the director of Kung Mangarap Ka’t Magising (1977), AKO Batch 81 (1921) and Sister Stella L. (1984), Mike de Leon’s debut film Itim (The Rites of May, 1976) and multi-awarded Kisapmata (In the Wink of an Eye, 1981) reel their way in!
Itim was voted by Gawad Urian as one of the best films of the ‘70s. Starred by Charo Santos and Tommy Abuel, the supernatural thriller follows a man returning to his provincial home for the Holy Week, to visit his incapacitated father. There he meets an enigmatic woman and during his stay, he discovers the truth behind his sister’s disappearance. Its restoration made possible by Italian film laboratory L’Immagine Ritrovata, recently premiered at the Cannes Film Festival’s Classic section.
In case you missed it: Hybrid QCinema 2021: Lineup of Films, Where to Watch, and More
Kisapmata, on the other hand, was presented at the Director’s Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival 1982. A true crime story on dominance, incest, and madness between a father and daughter reported by Filipino writer and journalist, National Artist Nick Joaquin. Also played by Charo Santos and Vic Silayan, this psychological horror takes after Joaquin’s acclaimed crime reportage The House on Zapote Street. De Leon’s ingenious adaptation is known as one of the most gruesome films in Philippine cinema.
Apart from QCinema, New York’s Museum of Modern Art will likewise showcase an exclusive screening for the whole month in admiration and honour of claiming Mike de Leon as “one of Filipino cinema’s most fiercely political and dramatic storytellers in his own right”.
Related: Ishmael Bernal, Lino Brocka, Lav Diaz: 12 Directors Who Have Shaped Philippine Cinema
Mike de Leon: Self-Portrait of a Filipino Filmmaker will preview Itim, Kisapmata, Sister Stella L., and AKO Batch 81, along with Citizen Jake (2018), Moments in a Stolen Dream (1977), Signos (1983), and the recent Mr. Li (2019) from November 1 to 30. MoMA’s tribute to Mike de Leon will be a display of the latter’s journey throughout his years of moviemaking, his dedication to the craft, and the prevailing significance of his sensations to date.
See also: Heneral Luna, Anino, On The Job, and More: Critically Acclaimed Filipino Films You Ought To Know