BLACKWORMS
This is not a film by Khavn

SYNOPSIS
A young woman faced with the crimes of her past suffers punishment of a Dantean nature. But what was her crime? And why does the saying “After everything, nothing” resonate through her life?

Director & Producer: Khavn De La Cruz
Writer: Joseph Nacino
Cinematographer: Albert Banzon
Editing & Sound Design: Lawrence S. Ang
Music: Juan Silos Jr. and Ariston Avelino
Production Design & Production Management: Kristine Kintana
Cast: Donna Miranda 
Production Company: Filmless Films
Year: 2009
Country: Philippines

INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL OBERHAUSEN

In the course of more than five decades, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen has become one of the world’s most respected film events – a place where filmmakers and artists such as Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Roman Polanski, Alexander Kluge and Werner Herzog, and more recently Ulrike Ottinger, Romuald Karmakar, Pipilotti Rist, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and François Ozon have presented their first films.

Up until today, the Festival continues its tradition of launching up and coming filmmakers and setting trends – whether it’s the early recognition of short videos, the support of music videos, the exploration of new digital formats or its openness for the interaction between art and the short form.

Due to its unconventional view of short film, the Festival has always been very successful in resisting being pinned down to a certain image. It has nevertheless managed to instigate various political and aesthetical developments, for instance through the Oberhausener Manifest, perhaps the most important group document in the history of German film. Careful programming and a pioneering choice of subjects has helped the Festival to build up its exclusive position in an increasingly unpredictable market.

Furthermore, in cooperation with its media partners, ARTE, 3sat, Ki.Ka (the children’s channel of ARD and ZDF, 2000- 2007) and INTRO, the Festival has helped to open up new audiences for short films. In their short film programs, ARTE and 3sat have been cooperating with the Festival for years, while in 2001 MTV televised 25 short films from the programmes of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.

THE VIEW FROM ELSEWHERE

The Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) launches The View From Elsewhere (March 19 – June 13), its first exhibition for 2009, in partnership with Queensland Art Gallery|Gallery of Modern Art.

The view from elsewhere is an exhibition of film, video and installation works reflecting contemporary moving image practice from East Asia to the Middle East. Featuring works by some of the region’s most acclaimed filmmakers as well as an installation of artists’ video work, The view from elsewhere is a must see for anyone interested in the life enriching experiences afforded by contemporary film practice.

“Sydney offers very limited opportunities for dedicated movie goers to enjoy the cinémathèque experience. For three months, SCAF will change this, showing over one hundred movies in the intimate space of our Paddington gallery, and it will be free to all comers. Audiences will be introduced to some of the best films made in the region over recent years that cannot, and will not, be seen in mainstream movie theatres. Cinema has played an important role in the process of cultural renewal in these regions. With the changing socio-political landscapes, a number of talented directors have emerged to reflect upon topical issues of culture in their respective countries…” said Dr Gene Sherman, Executive Director and Founder of SCAF.

“Film is a natural fit with the SCAF philosophy. Low cost digital cameras now mean that movie making is no longer the preserve of heavily funded film production studios – it has become a democratic medium; the essential visual language through which people today communicate. The new wave of Asian filmmakers are using low production values to rigorously explore and interpret the world in a way not seen before.” said Dr Sherman.

Curated by Queensland Art Gallery’s Kathryn Weir (Head of International Art and the Australian Cinémathèque) in collaboration with Mark Nash (Head of Department, Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of London), the movies are as diverse in length as they are in subject matter; ranging from the unrelenting punk-rock driven soundtrack of Khavn De La Cruz’s Squatterpunk (2007), a film about the poverty in the slums of Manila, through to the tender documentary elegiac love story of Hu Jie’s Though I am Gone (2006), a film recently banned in China because it deals with the first death of the Cultural Revolution.

Jia Zhangke’s feature, the hauntingly lyrical Still Life (2006), Golden Lion winner at the Venice Film Festival in 2006, tells a love story filmed against the backdrop of one of China’s most controversial projects, the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. While A House in Jerusalem (1998) by Israeli Amos Gitaï, traces the history of a house in West Jerusalem over twenty years from 1980 and the families that have lived in it during this turbulent period.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi6awU-v9eU

Khavn’s “Manila In The Fangs Of Darkness” (2008) & Lino Brocka’s “Bayan Ko: Kapit Sa Patalim” aka “My Own Country” (1975) will be shown at BAFICI (Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente), one of the most outstanding film festivals of the world.

MANILA IN THE FANGS OF DARKNESS
This is not a film by KHAVN

Very likely the world’s most prolific major filmmaker, Khavn makes “filmless films” (his company’s name and his way of defining video-shot cinema) with a madcap energy married to deadly seriousness, tethered to no genre or tradition except his own commitment to radical cinema’s capacity to change audiences. But like his fellow radicals Raya Martin, Lav Diaz and John Torres, Khavn knows his Filipino film history, and honors his cinema godfather, Lino Brocka, in Manila in the Fangs of Darkness —a title pun on Brocka’s classic, Manila in the Claws of Neon, starring the young Bembol Roco as Julio Madiaga, searching for his beloved and endangered Ligaya. The older Roco now reappears as a hybrid character beyond the grave, partly as tragic Julio, partly as brutal Kommander Kontra in Brocka’s Fight for Us, still trying to save Ligaya from the city’s abyss of sex and violence. Khavn’s recent films display Manila as a trap, where the past is perpetually revisited in the present, just as Roco’s past films recycle in his mind as he wanders like Travis Bickle and Orpheus down the mean streets.

BAYAN KO: MY OWN COUNTRY
A film by LINO BROCKA

Lino Brocka, who died in a car accident in 1991, is considered the most important Filipino filmmaker. Maybe we could talk about Brocka’s main creed (of cinema as starting point, at gusts a second, for denunciation, for melodrama, for intelligence) or maybe we could present his Bayan Ko as one of the strongest left-hand punches Ferdinando Marcos’ dictatorship had ever received. Turning the story of a desperate guy who robs in order to support his family into the mirror of a period in time, and, at the same time, translating into the story the fury caused by the then-recent murder of journalist Benigno Aquino, Brocka’s powerful, compromising film brought worldwide attention towards the poor and the marginalized in his country, although, to accomplish that, the director had to smuggle it all the way to Cannes and, as a consequence, lost temporarily his Filipino citizenship. Bayan Ko can be seen as part of a double feature with the latest “filmless film” by Khavn de la Cruz (one of Brocka’s most talented heirs), Manila in the Fangs of Darkness, which is presented in the Panorama section.
 

BAFICI 09: Las 15 sorpresas que recomienda el “anfitrión” 
El director del BAFICI aceptó la propuesta de armar una lista con 15 títulos que, en principio, no figurarían entre los must see de la programación, pero que según él tienen chances de convertirse en las revelaciones de este año.
- MR. ARKADIN, por Sergio Wolf 

Manila in the Fangs of Darkness, de Khavn de la Cruz; y Bayan Ko My Own Country, de Lino Brocka. La relación de esta película con la Manila de Lino Brocka es esencial, en tanto recupera no tanto al actor de aquella película de Brocka sino al personaje que ha quedado adherido al actor, convirtiendo el film precedente en una suerte de flashback de la ciudad y la cultura más que del atormentado personaje. Pero la Manila… de De la Cruz también podría verse como una actualización política del cine de Brocka y en es esentido, no estaría mal armar un vaivén con Bayan Ko My Own Country, la obra maestra de Brocka, que es una de las imperdibles del BAFICI. 
http://www.otroscines.com/columnistas_detalle.php?idnota=2579&idsubseccion=12

BAFICI: BUENOS AIRES INDEPENDENT FILM INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

With over 450 films screened between March 25th and April 5th, the Buenos Aires Independent Film International Festival (BAFICI) positions the capital of Argentina once again as an international screen portraying the latest tendencies in cinema.

Tha BAFICI was born eleven years ago and, ever since then, it has become one of the most outstanding film festivals of the world.

Celebrating its 11th anniversary this year, the new edition of the BAFICI brings  Buenos Aires back to the  meeting point for diversity in cinema it used to be for all the corners of the world.

With the screening of over 450 films, this seventh art celebration is the huge showcase of the latest world film trends. Besides the three competition categories (international, national and short film), the BAFICI offers different thematic segments  organized by the great variety of the featured films, which includes world, argentine and latin-american premieres as well as retrospectives. It will take place for twelve days, from March 25th to April 5th, and will be held in an exhibition circuit of theaters located in different districts of the city.

Tha BAFICI was born eleven years ago and, ever since then, it has become one of the most outstanding film festivals of the world, with significant recognition and a place of privilege in the international film calendar. Along with the Mar del Plata Film Festival, it is Argentina’s most important event on film production.

One of the festival´s more attractive features is its special activities program, which includes debates, seminars, conferences, free outdoor screenings, music festivals, performances and book presentations. Standing out on this occasion is the Talent Campus Buenos Aires, focused on film and music and jointly organized with the Berlin Film Festival. Different seminars and workshops will be held for four days conducted by regional and world prominent professionals, academics, and scholars; they will provide a theoretical and practical framework with the aim of contributing to cinematographic education.

Likewise, the sixth edition of the Buenos Aires Lab (BAL) will be held, seeking to support development and production of independent cinema in Latin America. Professionals from all over the world are expected to attend: producers, international sales agents, distributors, television networks, and endowment funds interested in Latin American cinema.

More over, just as the BAL, the BAFICI will offer again its Industry Office, a service for international and local film industry. Its purpose is to provide special assistance to programmers, filmmakers, producers, and other industry related people to foster dialog between foreign and local participants of the festival.

“MANILA IN THE FANGS OF DARKNESS” LINKS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL_ZQv5Bi8A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOFmzLQgq3U

LITERATURE
(Philippines, 2008, Khavn De La Cruz, 10 min)

One hell of an existentialist one-man hard-boiled crime story. Visions from the streets of Manila. Life passes by. Literature can be deadly if taken seriously. Is this how poetic justice looks like? (Tina Lange, Asian Hotshots Festival in Berlin)

ASIA’S BEST SHORT FILMS AT MUMBAI TIMES CAFE
We’re screening a special selection of some of the best short films from Asia this Monday Night. Tina Lange, the curator and director of the Asian Hotshots Festival in Berlin (her festival showcases the best contemporary cinema from Asia) has especially selected these films and will be doing something like a workshop cum talk cum
screening.

WHERE: Mumbai Times Café mumbai.burrp.com
ADDRESS: Fifth Floor, Crystal Shopper’s Paradise, Off Linking Road, Bandra (W). Mumbai, India
LANDMARK: KFC on Linking Road. Walk into the lane.
START TIME: 9pm
END TIME: 12.30am.

SYNOPSIS
Literature is a surreal narrative poem that revolves around a revolver, a forlorn man, heavy traffic, and a book. It surveys the elements of a short story as seen through the eyes of a semi-omniscient speaker, who observes but not moralizes, who talks about possibilities but not the truths, who relishes in both the reportage and the investigation.

CAST AND CREDITS
Starring Farley Alcantara
Directed & Produced by Khavn
Written by Joel Toledo
Cinematography by Albert Banzon
Editing by Lawrence S. Ang
Sound Design by Ria Munoz
Production Design by Lope Cui, Jr.
Voice-over by Ebong Joson
Production Company: Filmless Films

Watch the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrap0TFEBoM&feature=PlayList&p=5781319D93AD27B8&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=5