1617, Las Islas Filipinas. The Spanish friar, Father Enciso, the encomendero of one of the islands, rules with unrelenting toughness and an insatiable libido to tame the savages.

Structured and less beholden to its narrative, a 19th-century woman visits present-day Philippines and observes three interwoven stories: those of a prostitute, a group of criminals, and a musician.

Andrés Bonifacio, the freedom fighter known as the father of the Philippine revolution, was executed by rival revolutionaries in 1897. His wife, Gregoria de Jesus, searched for his body in the mountains for 30 days. It was never found.

A man appears to a female reporter and claims he is the famous kidnapper that has the world astir and promises to turn himself in if she listens to his story. Though she is suspicious of him, she starts to fall more and more into his story.

In the 16th century, young and ambitious Portuguese navigator Fernão de Magalhães rebels against the power of King Manuel I, who doesn't support his dream of discovering the world. He persuades the Spanish Crown to fund his bold expedition to the fabled lands of the East. The voyage is exhausting beyond expectations, with hunger and mutiny pushing the crew to their limits. Upon reaching the islands of the Malayan Archipelago, Magalhães' mind changes. He becomes obsessed with conquest and conversion, which sparks violent uprisings beyond his control.

2001 Filipino film

Hilarion Zabala, a former master sergeant, is tormented by a strange smell. The diagnosis is phantosmia, i.e. olfactory hallucinations, where he perceives smells that do not actually exist. His doctor attributes this to past trauma and recommends that he confront and recall his dark military service period as a solution. Zabala, willing to take on any task, voluntarily visits a military base and is eventually assigned to a remote island penal colony. However, another horrific reality awaits him there. From religious bloodshed to human rights abuses against women, the various forms of violence created by humans are still structurally and routinely pervasive. How can justice and salvation be achieved in an age of violence? Can violence used to prevent violence ever be justified? Deep anguish is reflected through the contemplative black-and-white imagery. (BOO Kyunghwan)

2023 Filipino film

The Philippines, 1974: as Marcos’ oppressive regime becomes increasingly entrenched after he imposed martial law in 1972, Servando Monzon III, heir to his powerful clan’s hacienda and family business, refuses to capitulate to the dictator’s plans to control the country. In this adaptation of Ricardo Lee’s short story and screenplay Servando Magdamag, Lav Diaz, the unrelenting and incisive prober of Philippine history’s shadowy areas, offers a film of epic proportions. The aim, as unequivocally indicated by the title, is nothing less than to scrutinise Filipino violence and explore its roots from Spanish colonisation to the present day. Feudalism and power struggles are closely examined. Borne aloft by a remarkable cast – John Lloyd Cruz in the main role is a huge television and film star in the Philippines – this “sine novela”, according to the opening credits, mixes up the codes of the telenovela with Lav Diaz’ ostensibly very different filmmaking. The story unfolds of the mutual relationships of a profusion of characters over time, shot in the sumptuous black and white that is now the stuff of most of his movies. The filmmaker himself frames these magnificent shots that stretch out, sensuous experiences of living tableaux attentive to the bodies set in a place as well as to the languages used, to the inner movements and down-time. In this film that’s both a tragic saga set in the past and the tale of an “endless nightmare”, Diaz takes on a dual allegorical dimension – the figures of the philosopher and the blind man – and an informative one, like the revolutionary education meetings that pepper the story. This “tale of violence” is also an epic with very contemporary resonances, as the recent election to the presidency of another Marcos, a devoted son of the previous president, reminds us. (Nicolas Feodoroff) 源自：

In his trailer for the Viennale, THE BOY WHO CHOSE THE EARTH, Lav Diaz tells the story of a boy who has aspirations – he educates himself and forges plans. One day there’s a knock on the door, someone leaves and he is literally left out in the rain. Thunder cracks and lightning flashes, water pelts down and engulfs everything. Incredulously, the boy looks up to the heavens – is this supposed to be his destiny? THE BOY WHO CHOSE THE EARTH is probably the shortest film Lav Diaz has ever made – a grain rich in meaning. (V'18 Trailer: THE BOY WHO CHOSE THE EARTH von Lav Diaz） The idea of commissioning Lav Diaz to direct a two-minute trailer might sound like a cinephilic jest. But the result of this experiment in contrasts is a dense, evocative short film that transmits layers of narrative and mystery in its brief run time. Aesthetically speaking, THE BOY WHO CHOSE THE EARTH resembles some of Diaz’s early shadowy black-and-white works, albeit marked by a somewhat softer, finer touch. While maintaining a focus on the relations of family, and the importance of place, its tone departs starkly from Diaz’s often wrenching epic-realist sensibilities. It involves a young boy, an anonymous son, who lives seemingly self-sustained in what might be the present and might be the end of the world. He is alone amid an ostensibly functional, if precarious universe. His occupations form a picture of early subjectivity – and a prompt to explore, from the inner self to an ever-obscured life outside. (Rachael A. Rakes)

Hesus Mariano is caught in a deadly match between his mentor Rebel Leader Miguel Reynante and military Colonel Arnold Simon. Drawing inspiration from his childhood sweetheart Hilda, Hesus decides to change the rules and take control of the game.

Puppeteer Hernando Alamada returns home, experiencing a bitter transition in the aftermath of the unexpected death of Philippine president Ramon Magsaysay. Communicating only using his puppet, he goes on a journey with a nun, a sex worker and a teenage boy to a remote island where gold has been discovered.

Erwin ROMULO, the late Alexis TIOSECO’s best friend, recalls the events of TIOSECO and his girlfriend’s untimely death. DIAZ makes use of one long take to allow ROMULO an uninterrupted narration of the events. The pain of recalling is palpable. ROMULO is transformed into a classic DIAZ protagonist, a man who is continuously burdened by the irrationalities of the society.

以菲律宾为主题的影片，代表菲律宾电影的三位导演Brillante Mendoza，Lavda Diaz和Kidla Lathatimic参与其中。菲律宾由7,641个岛屿组成，分为三个部分：北吕宋岛，南棉兰老岛和中米沙鄢群岛。

Lieutenant Hermes Papauran, one of the best investigators in the Philippines, is at a deep moral crossroads. He is a first-hand witness of the murderous anti-drug campaign conducted by his force, his anxiety and guilt triggering a severe skin disease. As he tries to heal, a dark past haunts him.

A wandering peddler suddenly decides to separates from his group of travellers, his reasons are unknown and the dangers will be many.

An engkanto, or encanto, is an often-malign spirit dwelling in the Filipino countryside, although in Death in the Land of Encantos, some of them have migrated to eastern Europe as exiles. Their human counterpart is the film’s protagonist, Benjamin (“Hamin”) Agusan, a poet who returns from years in Russia to search for the body of his girlfriend in the wake of a catastrophic typhoon and landslides. These 2006 disasters devastated the Bicol region where Diaz’s films have been set since Evolution of a Filipino Family, killing thousands. This film, which inaugurated Diaz’s “trauma trilogy,” includes documentary footage in an attempt to record the suffering of the local inhabitants. A Filipino poet named Benjamin Agusan (Roeder Camanag) is the hapless native who returns to his hometown Padang to witness the aftermat h of the super typhoon. For the past seven years, Benjamin had been living in an old town called Kaluga in Russia. With his grant and residency, he taught and conducted workshops in a university. The poet published two books of sadness and longing in the process. In Russia, Benjamin was able to shoot video collages, fell in love with a Slavic beauty, buried a son, and almost went mad. He came back to bury his dead-father, mother, sister and a lover. He came back to face Mount Mayon, the raging beauty and muse of his youth. He came home to confront the country that he so loved and hated, the Philippines. He came back to die in the land of his birth. He wanders around the obliterated village meeting old friends and lovers.

As no other filmmaker, Lav Diaz is involved with the suffering of the people of the Philippines, with its history of colonialism, corruption and poverty. A philosophical drama about the psychological effects of injustice and arbitrariness. Two poor labourers leave the city looking for a treasure. Few filmmakers make films as long as those of Lav Diaz. Six hours is not even particularly long within his oeuvre. He has films to his name that are twice that long. And even fewer filmmakers would want to reshoot a film they’ve already made. Yet that’s what happened here. Lav Diaz shot a first version of Florentina Hubaldo, CTE in 2009. Once he had a HD camera, he decided to shoot the film again. Another long film. Back to distant and inhospitable locations. It says a lot about this filmmaker's commitment that he does not make life easy for himself when telling his epic social dramas. Florentina Hubaldo, CTE has several protagonists. There are the two construction workers, Manoling and Juan, who have become unemployed and left the city to go digging for treasure. There’s the shopkeeper Manang Nena who makes her daughter become a prostitute. And the Harvard-business student Briggs who takes over his family's feudal company. Stories that show the extreme aspects of the Philippines. Programmer Note by Gertjan Zuilhof: Lav Diaz in Rotterdam: Florentina Hubaldo, CTE: 300' x 2 = 600' + Century, 355' x 2 = 710' + Butterflies: 58' x 3 = 174' + Melancholia: 480' x 3 = 1440' + Purgatorio: 16' x 2 = 32' + Encantos: 540' x 2 = 1080' + Heremias book 1': 540' x 1 = 540' + When the Rain Ended: 7' x 2 = 14' + Evolution: 630' x 2 =1260'. Total: 5850 / 60 = 97.5 hours. Yes, I decided to count it all up. After the screening of Florentina Hubaldo, CTE, the festival has screened almost 100 hours of Lav Diaz. Lav Diaz is the master of the long film, which is called more elegantly in French film fleuve, and since his masterpiece Evolution of a Philippine Family (2005) we have followed his work closely. Or, to pursue the French metaphor, we have drifted down the river with him. There’s plenty to be said about the work of Lav Diaz. These are opulent stories that are embedded in a complex social-political and geographical history, but they are also just long or very long films that demand a certain physical perseverance from the Spectator. I love to allow myself to be swept away by the full length and duration of the films, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t occasionally drift off. For instance - I think it was in 2006 - I saw the rough version of Heremias on the Philippine vacation island Boracay. The Cinemanila festival was accustomed to organising workshops on the island and Lav Diaz was to screen his latest majestic work at night in the open air on the famous white beach. I didn’t want to miss that.. For technical reasons, the screening was moved inside and at the end of the film, Lav Diaz's producer, himself and I were the only spectators left. 'Last-man standing,' Lav said about me next day to the director of the Cinemanila Festival, which wasn’t quite true. During the final titles, I was shaken awake by the master so I was just in time to see the HBF logo.

Andrés Bonifacio is celebrated as the father of the Philippines Revolution against Spanish colonial rule. This eight-hour epic examines this myth, undertaking an expedition into history through various interwoven narrative threads, held together by an exploration of the individual’s role in history.

An ex-military sniper who was honorably discharged accepts a mission that will indefinitely change her life in the attempts to make ends meet. It is a quiet character study of when your life's purpose is stripped away, but you still pursue it, only to realize that it could kill you.