He is best known as a proponent of slow cinema, but perhaps no other local filmmaker today has been as prolific and devoted as Lav Diaz in examining the Filipino condition. | marinelcruzINQ /PDI
Diaz was shooting his latest film in Quezon province — and again mining Philippine history for material and “metaphor” — when Inquirer Entertainment caught up with him last week.
“Only recently, my team and I shot a film and included a community of Aetas in the production. They all played important roles in the film; some of them as actors while others, as crew members and workers,” he recalled. Big questions have indeed permeated Diaz’s body of work, but his declared goals as an artist remain uncompromisingly simple. “My films are never for profit motive and the ego; they’re for education, for culture, for humanity,” he said in an Inquirer interview online.
“Just look at it this way, this is just a simple example: try talking to a person who doesn’t want to struggle to learn and examine history, and easily you can see that he’d be the one who’s so prone to gossips, fake news, conspiracy theories; and he’d be the one supporting demagogues, megalomaniacs, egomaniacs, despots and false prophets.
“Are we going back to the streets again? I’m so tired. There’s the feeling of failure on our part. As cultural workers, we didn’t do our part right. We asked the questions; we set things in motion — but how come there’s still this big wall of ignorance? … The cycle goes on.”He may admit being tired, yet in the next breath, he said: “It’s important that we keep working tirelessly. If we get discouraged, what will happen to our country, to the world? In our own little way, we have to help.
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