B is for Lino Brocka, A-Z of Filipino Cultural Exports
Lino Brocka (1939–1991) is a celebrated Filipino Filmmaker, producing more than 50 films in a short career spanning barley 20 years. Working between commercial and experimental film, at his finest Brocka captured the social realist conditions which the Philippines suffered under President Marcos’ martial law. Ironically, after death in 1991, Brocka was bestowed an order of ‘National Artists of the Philippines’ for film – initiated by the very government he set out to criticise. Brocka’s critique on Filipino politics extended beyond aesthetics, he was a political activist and in doing so initiated a collective critical platform for artists to air social/ political concern, known as the ‘Concerned Artists Phillipines’.
I discovered Lino Brocka by chance, whilst flicking throught the MOMA Film Collection handbook. A film still from Brocka’s ‘Bona’ (1980) grabbed my attention (above), without reading any labels – I felt it to be distinctly Filipino. The stunning woman in the photo held the same familiar yet distinctivley unique look of concern which I associate to my Filipino mother, when displeased. Unfortunately ‘Bona’ and Lino Brocka’s other works are not widely distributed (nor available with English subtitles), despite being accessioned into the MOMA collection and championed by the influential Pierre Rissient – ‘man of cinema’.
#OFW more than a country of good looking, half-wit, opportunistic terrorists
