Flim presents:
FLIM (film event)
Friday September 17 | Doors: 9 PM, Screening: 9:30 PM | $8 – 10 sliding scale
Feature: Ang isla sa dulo ng mundo (a.k.a. The Island at the End of the World) [2005], Directed by Raya Martin
Martin travels to Itbayat island, of the Batan group, on the far north of the Phillipines, to record the customs of its inhabitants and their life away from modern civilization. Itbayat is open to visitors only in the summer; the storms raging in the region completely isolate the islanders for the rest of the year. The camera gives them the chance to tell their stories. “I was interested in understanding the characteristics of the community beyond its practices and traditions”, says the director. Winner of the Best Documentary award at the .MOV, Manila’s alternative festival dedicated to digital film.
Runtime: 106 mins | Language: Filipino/Tagalog (English Hard Subbed) | Country: Philippines | Color: Colour
IMDb Link: imdb.com/title/tt0476786/
(…) In Martin’s case, his first full-length work, The Island at the End of the World, seemed to have begun as more of a project than a proper film, and yet its development into a quietly powerful study of Itbayat, one of the archipelago’s northernmost isles (and one of its most isolated) is part and parcel of the filmmaking process itself. I speculated afterwards that Martin may have structured his video documentary (filmed with a light DV-cam in the summer of 2004, when Martin was around 20 years old) in roughly the chronology in which it was shot; he and his camera arrive on the island by bi-plane, and then start exploring the people and the
landscape.
The effect is of a kind of pure, immediate naturalism, impelled by energetic curiosity and drive, creating a strange, gorgeous sense of a visitation. Martin never hides or lies about his outsider’s status, nor does this seep into alienation. Instead, Island provides a record of moments as they actually happened, unfettered and sympathetic without the slightest whiff of cloying attitude.
Preceded by: Track Projections [2007] and Long Live Philippine Cinema! [2007], Directed by Raya Martin
Two recent short films also by Martin: Track Projections is an abstracted landscaped in the vein of Stan Brakhage, while Long Live… is a “burlesque, harsh satire about the mistress of Philippine film production.”
Runtime: Various | Language: Filipino/Tagalog (English Hard Subbed) | Country: Philippines | Color: Colour
IMDb Link(for Long Livea…): imdb.com/title/tt1527163/
Call 604 872 8180 or info@blim.ca for information.
