“Essential Truths of the Lake” is the last thing most people would expect from Lav Diaz: a direct follow-up to his previous film, “When the Waves Are Gone.” It’s not a sequel, per se (this one actually comes earlier), but they are connected, with a third movie featuring the same disillusioned police detective in the works.
The Filipino filmmaker, whose pokey social critiques run anywhere from three to 11 hours, established the character of Lt. Hermes Papauran (John Lloyd Cruz) in “Waves.” Described there as “arguably the greatest Filipino investigator ever,” he’s Diaz’s version of “The Singing Detective”: a tortured enforcer afflicted with a skin condition that reflects on the surface the conflict and cynicism roiling within him. He’s a good cop in a corrupt country, furious with how Rodrigo Duterte mishandled the war on drugs.
It’s a basic rule of dramaturgy that it...
The Filipino filmmaker, whose pokey social critiques run anywhere from three to 11 hours, established the character of Lt. Hermes Papauran (John Lloyd Cruz) in “Waves.” Described there as “arguably the greatest Filipino investigator ever,” he’s Diaz’s version of “The Singing Detective”: a tortured enforcer afflicted with a skin condition that reflects on the surface the conflict and cynicism roiling within him. He’s a good cop in a corrupt country, furious with how Rodrigo Duterte mishandled the war on drugs.
It’s a basic rule of dramaturgy that it...
- 8/12/2023
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Lav Diaz is “concerned” about the situation in his native Philippines. But it doesn’t mean he will stop making films.
“If you do any kind of cultural work, you can be branded as a ‘communist’ and it’s a reason for them to kill you,” he says.
“There aren’t many venues to show my films, so we basically give them away for free. Listen, I am aware of the danger. But you have to accept the reality, confront these issues and continue to make things. And be careful, because we know what happened to Salman Rushdie.”
Diaz, speaking to Variety at Armenia’s Golden Apricot festival, where he headed the jury, also opened up about his upcoming Locarno world premiere “Essential Truths of the Lake.”
The film, which contends in main competition for the Golden Leopard, sees him returning to investigator Hermes Papauran from “When the Waves Are Gone,...
“If you do any kind of cultural work, you can be branded as a ‘communist’ and it’s a reason for them to kill you,” he says.
“There aren’t many venues to show my films, so we basically give them away for free. Listen, I am aware of the danger. But you have to accept the reality, confront these issues and continue to make things. And be careful, because we know what happened to Salman Rushdie.”
Diaz, speaking to Variety at Armenia’s Golden Apricot festival, where he headed the jury, also opened up about his upcoming Locarno world premiere “Essential Truths of the Lake.”
The film, which contends in main competition for the Golden Leopard, sees him returning to investigator Hermes Papauran from “When the Waves Are Gone,...
- 7/19/2023
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Films Boutique will handle international sales on Filipino master Lav Díaz’s “Essential Truths of The Lake,” one of the highest-profile titles in the just announced main International Competition at this year’s Locarno Festival.
The Berlin and Lyon-based production-sales company’s fifth collaboration with Diaz following, among others, Venice Golden Bear Winner “The Woman Who Left” and Berlin Silver Bear Winner “Lullaby To A Sorrowful Mystery,” “Essential Truths of The Lake” marks a prequel to Diaz’s ‘When The Waves Are Gone’ that premiered out of competition at Venice last year.
It reprises the character of the ethically conflicted police lieutenant Hermes Papauran, one of the best investigators of the Philippines. When asked what drives a man to search for the truth, Papauran says dejectedly that maybe he just wants to keep inflicting pain on himself.
Faced with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody murders and brazen lies, he...
The Berlin and Lyon-based production-sales company’s fifth collaboration with Diaz following, among others, Venice Golden Bear Winner “The Woman Who Left” and Berlin Silver Bear Winner “Lullaby To A Sorrowful Mystery,” “Essential Truths of The Lake” marks a prequel to Diaz’s ‘When The Waves Are Gone’ that premiered out of competition at Venice last year.
It reprises the character of the ethically conflicted police lieutenant Hermes Papauran, one of the best investigators of the Philippines. When asked what drives a man to search for the truth, Papauran says dejectedly that maybe he just wants to keep inflicting pain on himself.
Faced with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody murders and brazen lies, he...
- 7/5/2023
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
The Sydney Film Festival, which this year will celebrate its 70th edition, has unveiled its first dozen selections. Seven are feature films, five are documentaries.
“The 2023 program will expand on this legacy, promising to ignite stimulating dialogues and present powerful ideas that will broaden audience perspectives,” said festival director Nashen Moodley. He noted that over the previous 69 editions the Sydney festival has showcased more than 10,000 films.
Highlights among the documentaries are two Australian titles. “Rachel’s Farm” follows actor-director Rachel Ward as she revitalizes her beef farm using sustainable farming practices. In “The Last Daughter” Wiradjuri woman Brenda Matthews documents her search to uncover the truth about her government-ordered abduction as a child and to find her white foster family. Both Matthews and Ward will attend the festival in person.
“Red, White and Brass” – presented as a feature, rather than a documentary – is a fact-based tale of a group of...
“The 2023 program will expand on this legacy, promising to ignite stimulating dialogues and present powerful ideas that will broaden audience perspectives,” said festival director Nashen Moodley. He noted that over the previous 69 editions the Sydney festival has showcased more than 10,000 films.
Highlights among the documentaries are two Australian titles. “Rachel’s Farm” follows actor-director Rachel Ward as she revitalizes her beef farm using sustainable farming practices. In “The Last Daughter” Wiradjuri woman Brenda Matthews documents her search to uncover the truth about her government-ordered abduction as a child and to find her white foster family. Both Matthews and Ward will attend the festival in person.
“Red, White and Brass” – presented as a feature, rather than a documentary – is a fact-based tale of a group of...
- 4/5/2023
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSShadow of the Vampire.Willem Dafoe will join Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu film, news that comes 23 years after he played a fictitious version of Murnau's lead actor, Max Schreck, in Shadow of the Vampire. Dafoe’s supporting role is currently “unknown,” according to Deadline, though Eggers's vampire will be Bill Skarsgard.Sight & Sound continues their rollout of the Greatest Films of All Time, now unveiling the critics’ top 250.The great cinematographer Caroline Champetier will be honored with the Berlinale Camera award at this year’s festival, marking a career of beautifully lensed films for Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet, Jean-Luc Godard, Margarethe von Trotta, Claude Lanzmann, and Leos Carax, among many others.Following Sundance’s closing awards ceremony, we’ve compiled the full list of winners here on Notebook.
- 2/1/2023
- MUBI
When the Waves Are Gone (2022).Over the span of almost two decades, Lav Diaz has established himself not only as one of the most prolific filmmakers working in the realm of arthouse cinema—being perhaps the most acclaimed adherent of the slow expression—but also as a consistent observer of the political landscape of the Philippines. His method of work abounds in slowness, as well as the poetics of excess: long formats, politically-driven allegories, maximized genre capacity. The excessiveness appears in his preference for the independence of the film economy, too. Diaz not only directs and writes his films but oftentimes also designs, shoots and edits them, maintaining control over the final outcome—a whole universe of dark morality tales that encapsulate a gloomy here-and-now and down-to-earth scrutiny of the Philippine milieu. This rigidity in approach to medium translates to the choice of aesthetics. Diaz has embraced his favorite canvas: a grainy,...
- 1/26/2023
- MUBI
The 53rd International Film Festival of India (Iffi) will open with Austrian film “Alma & Oskar,” directed by Dieter Berner.
The film details the tumultuous relationship between Viennese society grand dame Alma Mahler (1879-1964) and Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980).
Iffi has also revealed the 15 films that will be competing for its top prize, the Golden Peacock Award, including 12 international titles and three Indian ones.
The international titles include “Perfect Number,” “Red Shoes,” “A Minor,” “No End,” “Mediterranean Fever,” “When the Waves Are Gone,” “I Have Electric Dreams,” “Cold as Marble,” “Seven Dogs,” “Maarya: The Ocean Angel,” “Nezouh” and “The Line.”
The Indian titles are “The Kashmir Files,” “The Storyteller” and “Kurangu Pedal.”
Iffi will also pay homage to late legendary Indian singer Lata Mangeshkar with a screening of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1973 musical drama film “Abhimaan,” starring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri.
Confirmed masterclasses at Iffi include those from: “Kung Fu Panda...
The film details the tumultuous relationship between Viennese society grand dame Alma Mahler (1879-1964) and Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980).
Iffi has also revealed the 15 films that will be competing for its top prize, the Golden Peacock Award, including 12 international titles and three Indian ones.
The international titles include “Perfect Number,” “Red Shoes,” “A Minor,” “No End,” “Mediterranean Fever,” “When the Waves Are Gone,” “I Have Electric Dreams,” “Cold as Marble,” “Seven Dogs,” “Maarya: The Ocean Angel,” “Nezouh” and “The Line.”
The Indian titles are “The Kashmir Files,” “The Storyteller” and “Kurangu Pedal.”
Iffi will also pay homage to late legendary Indian singer Lata Mangeshkar with a screening of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1973 musical drama film “Abhimaan,” starring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri.
Confirmed masterclasses at Iffi include those from: “Kung Fu Panda...
- 11/14/2022
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Halted by Covid-19, and now part of Locarno’s The Films After Tomorrow competition, Lav Diaz’s “When the Waves Are Gone” looks set to mark the first time the Filipino auteur will enjoy the upsides of full-force international co-production.
That co-production involve, moreover, some of highest-profile art film producers currently working in Europe.
Winner of Locarno Golden Leopard (2014’s “From What Is Before”) and a Venice Golden Lion (2016’s “The Woman Who Left”), Díaz movies have been set apart not only by their extraordinary lengths – 2016’s “A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” clocked in at just over six hours – but also their lack of resources.
“It’s understood that Diaz’s low-budget techniques involve a certain suspension of belief: thus, we accept that a powerful dictator only seems to have a staff of two,” critic Jonathan Romney wrote of last year’s “The Halt,” a low-fi sci-fi drama set in a 2034 dystopia.
That co-production involve, moreover, some of highest-profile art film producers currently working in Europe.
Winner of Locarno Golden Leopard (2014’s “From What Is Before”) and a Venice Golden Lion (2016’s “The Woman Who Left”), Díaz movies have been set apart not only by their extraordinary lengths – 2016’s “A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” clocked in at just over six hours – but also their lack of resources.
“It’s understood that Diaz’s low-budget techniques involve a certain suspension of belief: thus, we accept that a powerful dictator only seems to have a staff of two,” critic Jonathan Romney wrote of last year’s “The Halt,” a low-fi sci-fi drama set in a 2034 dystopia.
- 8/8/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
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