Kidlat Tahimik
Kidlat Tahimik’s son, Kabunyan de Guia, embarks on a journey from his hometown of Baguio to the southern urban city of Davao using an orange minivan and explores other places in the Philippines along the way.
As the ultimate enfant terrible of Philippine cinema, avant-gardist Kidlat Tahimik refuses to settle on anything, whether it’s the telling of a colonial past, or any version of this film, which he’s been making and revising for nearly four decades. BalikBayan, which means “returnee” in Filipino, is partly about the homecoming of the historical figure Enrique of Malacca, a Malay who Tahimik first played and brought to the screen in 1979. As the slave of the 16th-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan he circumnavigated the Earth, before returning home as a free man. Old footage of Enrique, played by the young Tahimik, is mixed with the fictional story of a mysterious old man, played by the present-day Tahimik, and documentary footage of a contemporary artist community in Baguio, in northern Philippines. In this version, Redux VI, Tahimik continues his quest to reconsider the Philippines’ colonial legacy. Shot on 16mm (1979–1980s) and video (1990s–2017).
Magellan, the famous navigator, met his untimely death in the Philippines before he could circumnavigate the globe. Ironically, it was his slave and translator Enrique who most likely was the first to achieve the historic feat.
A machine capable of recording ideas directly from the mind is invented, and an out-of-work comedian suffering from depression uses it to learn if he still has the gift to make people laugh.
Documentary profiling the directors involved in the loose Philippine New Wave filmmaking movement.
Produced over 15 years for the JVC-sponsored Tokyo Video Festival, Tahimik’s Video Diaries offers a lovely set of accents to his longer 16mm films. Tropes and themes that recur throughout the director’s career are set in gemlike relief in these brief yet eloquent videos, which include a loving reminiscence of fatherhood on the occasion of Tahimik’s 50th birthday; a tree-planting ritual to celebrate the impending 500th anniversary of Magellan’s voyage; a short documentary on the dying practice of rice terraces, filtered through a homage to Kurosawa; a tribute to the importance of roofs and the strength of bamboo as a building material; and a healing ritual for an oil spill off the island of Guimaras.
Accused of treason, Dr. Jose P. Rizal awaits trial and meets with his colonial government-appointed counsel, Luis Taviel de Andrade. The two build the case and arguments for the defense as significant events in the central figure's life prior to his incarceration unfold. Upon hearing Rizal's life story, Taviel begins to realize that the accused not just is innocent but exhibits in fact all the qualities of an extraordinary man. When the mock trial unreels, Taviel is all set to act as the prime advocate for his client as Rizal himself is about to give an earth-moving speech to defend his honor and address his countrymen. Meanwhile, the Spanish authorities have worked out the vast political machinery to ensure a guilty verdict. A revolution waits in the wings.
Kidlat Tahimik, a director and performer, sought to recreate relations between the body and filmed image seen through "Asian eyes." This groundbreaking project took the form of a documentary which Mr. Tahimik directed and in which he performed himself in order to show his own thinking about the different views of the body held by the "East" and the "West."
An unexploded bomb that the Americans dropped in the Philippines in their war against the Japanese was found in a river. It was transformed into a bell by the Ifugaos and sent back to Japan. This time as a gesture of peace.
Tahimik’s magnum opus, Why is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow? is an epic film diary spanning the 1980s. Though each of Tahimik’s films is unique, this one defies summary simply because of the sheer volume of ground it covers. While telling the story of a family – overseas vacations, school projects, children’s first steps – it also serves as an introduction to Filipino history and geography.
A philippine slave travels around the world. An early version of the story Tahimik used for BALIKBAYAN.
Stuck in the German lands of “Yodelburg,” our hero Kidlat dreams of space and muses on humanity’s endless capacity for creativity, whether on the moon or at home in the Philippines. A delightful, self-proclaimed “third-world space spectacle.”
"I am blushing" - Swedish comedy about a film crew traveling to the Philippines to find environments for a movie.
Set in a tiny Philippine village, the inimitable Kidlat Tahimik's film focuses on a family that makes paper-mache animals to sell during the traditional Turumba festivities. One year, a department store buyer purchases all their stock. When she returns with an order for 500 more (this time with the word "Oktoberfest" painted on them), the family's seasonal occupation becomes year-round alienated labor.
Narrating in voiceover, Tahimik explains the patterns of daily life in the village. He has a fascination with the Voice of America broadcasts, and particularly with the space program. He longs to be part of the developed world, and forms the Werner von Braun fan club. When an American arrives for an aborted international conference, he gets his chance. The American asks him to come to Paris, to run his chewing-gum-ball machine concession on the streets. In Paris, and on a trip to Germany, he makes friends and discovers that progress in the developed world sacrifices important values. Backgrounded by footage of a summit meeting in Paris, and unable to return to an idealized image of his past, he stubbornly refuses to capitulate to the terms of progress, resigning from his post as head of the Werner von Braun fan club and maintaining that he will find his own way.
The film follows Kaspar Hauser (Bruno S.), who lived the first seventeen years of his life chained in a tiny cellar with only a toy horse to occupy his time, devoid of all human contact except for a man who wears a black overcoat and top hat who feeds him.
