Kidlat Tahimik

Kidlat TAHIMIK (1942, Philippines) is a film director, screenwriter and artist and considered the godfather of Philippine New Wave cinema. Tahimik graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a master’s degree in Business Administration before moving to Europe, where he fell in love with film. With the guidance of Werner Herzog he directed his first film Perfumed Nightmare in 1977. The film won the FIRPESCI Prize at the Berlinale and was released in the United States by Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope studio. His 1982 film Who Invented the Yo-yo? Who Invented the Moon Buggy? was shot immediately after his debut and is seen as somewhat of a sequel, although it took Tahimik several years to finish the project. With his critical, experimental takes on postcolonialism and neocolonialism, Tahimik became an exemplar of South American Third Cinema. Since 1990, Tahimik has turned mostly to making short films and installations. In 2015, Balikbayan #1 Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III, a filmic essay almost 40 years in the making, was completed. The film premiered at the Berlinale, where it was awarded the Caligari Prize. In 2018, he was named a National Artist of the Philippines.