Screening with debate: “Contemporary arts in the Philippines”, with a panel composed of director Kanakan Balintagos, street-artist Rai Cruz, producer Arleen Cuevas, director Maryo Delos Reyes, and performer Carlos Celdran.

In Mondomanila, director Khavn de la Cruz (who made Son of God with Michael Noer) departs, aesthetically as well as morally, from every notion of good taste to build instead a nightmarish vision of squalor, savagery and dismay of the Philippines and its people, throwing it all up directly on the eyes and ears of his disconcerted viewers.

One may be revolted by such a depiction of the Pinoys, and quite justifiably so, but it would be a mistake to dismiss this act of provocation as merely gratuitous and futile. To a certain degree, Mondomanila is just that: a big farce with no other real motive than to be outrageous. It can, and should, be seen instead as an aesthetic and political pamphlet of great violence aimed at the Filipino society’s ruling class, who leaves the poor and humbled masses to their plight and to their everyday battle to survive.

Reclaiming in their name what has been declined to them repeatedly over the years, namely their dignity and their fundamental right not to be ignored, de la Cruz creates a visual maelstrom as a cathartic way of voicing out a frustration that could no longer have been muttered.

Event: The screening will start at 17.30, and will be followed by a debate “Contemporary arts in the Philippines”with a panel composed of director Kanakan Balintagos, street-artist Rai Cruz, producer Arleen Cuevas, and performer Carlos Celdran.

Director: Khavn de la Cruz (Philippines, 2010)
With: Timothy Mabalot, Marife Necesito, Jim Rocky
75 min. English subtitles.