Maynila sa kuko ng liwanag

The feature Maynila, which is regarded as one of his most important and most typical films, and the short film Brocka are programmed in the festival as a memorial to Lino Brocka — our guest in Rotterdam last year — who died on 22 May 1991 after a car crash in Quezon City on the Philippines. Brocka died while he was hard at work. He had already advanced a long way with the shooting of Kislap sa Dilim and was about to start shooting another film.Lino Brocka mastered several styles of film-making. Maynila, ‘a stunning coup d’essai’ (Joel David), reveals his documentary-realistic side, but he was also at home in more baroque genres. He was the only film-maker on the Philippines with an international reputation and was among the most important Third-World film-makers. In his own country, his reputation was broader than only that of a famous film-maker; he also played an active role in politics and in resistance to the Marcos dictatorship. His role in the resistance landed him in jail. Brocka’s political and social involvement played an important role in the themes of his films. He was a follower of the Mormon variant of Christianity and was a minister of this church for some time.Brocka was not a puritan film-maker, for instance he financed his serious projects by making commercial ‘bread-and-butter’ films. In whichever genre he worked, he always has a close bond with his actors. ‘Good performances have always been the hallmark of better Lino Brocka pictures’ (Emmanuel Reyes).The countless stars of Filipino cinema gave his funeral a royal quality.