Juror
Lav Diaz
[Juror’s Statement]
I want to watch films, movies—to be inside the theater, be in the dark, with the so-called “audience,” with a tribe of cinema addicts like me. Jurying is imposed so I must be there. And jurying imposes some discourse, and so I need that continuum, that education, that praxis, that culture, that eternal search for greater cinema.
Born 1958 on Mindanao, the Philippines. Lav Diaz’s films include Batang West Side (2001), Evolution of a Filipino Family (2004), and Heremias (2006). Death in the Land of Encantos (2007) closed the Horizonti section of the Venice Film Festival and was awarded a special mention for the Golden Lion. Melancholia (2008) won the Grand Prize of Venice’s Horizonti section. Norte, the End of History (2013) was invited to Cannes’s Un Certain Regard section. He is known for breathtakingly beautiful long takes and films of formidable length, as well as his perspective on the social and political realism of the Philippines.
Norte, the End of History
Norte, Hangganan ng Kasaysayan
THE PHILIPPINES / 2013 / Tagalog / Color / Blu-ray / 250 min
Director, Editor: Lav Diaz
Script: Lav Diaz, Rody Vera
Photography: Lauro Rene Manda
Set Design: Perry Dizon
Sound: Corinne De San Jose
Cast: Archie Alemania, Angeli Bayani, Soliman Cruz, Angelina Kanapi, Sid Lucero, Hazel Orencio, Mae Paner
Production Company, Source: Wacky O Productions
*Co-presented with Tokyo International Film Festival
Fabian is a privileged law student who is full of cynicism as he discusses social justice and his views on Philippine society. He murders a moneylender and her daughter with a knife, but it is the needy DVD peddler Joaquin who is accused of the crime. Unable to defend his case, Joaquin is found guilty and sent to serve a life sentence in jail. Slow and intense long shots give pleasure to the widescreen format as the story follows the struggles of Joaquin’s wife and children, Fabian’s growing guilt and eruption, and the quiet life of Joaquin in a faraway prison. The title Norte refers to Ilocos Norte, Luzon’s northernmost province. It is known as the birthplace of President Ferdinand Marcos, who once passed the bar examinations with a near-perfect score.