This one comes highly recommended. No set date for the second screening, so I'd do my best to try to attend this one.
From Press Release
Philippine Premiere of Raya Martin's"Maicling Pelicula Nañg Ysañg Indio Nacional (O Ang Mahabang Kalungkutan ng Katagalugan)" on Independence Day
With a timely screening set on Philippine Independence Day, Raya Martin's debut feature-film, "Maicling Pelicula Nañg Ysañg Indio Nacional
(O Ang Mahabang Kalungkutan ng Katagalugan)" will have its Philippine premiere on June 12, 2006, 7:30 p.m. at Shangri-La Plaza. Having recently completed in a filmmaking residency in Paris, France, the screening of Martin's "Maicling Pelicula" is presented by Ambassade de France aux Philippines as part of the 11th French Film Festival.
One of the most ambitious Filipino films in the last decade, Martin's gorgeously photographed "Maicling Pelicula" is a collection of silent film actualities revolving around the Indio, the common man during colonial times. Set in the 1890s brewing revolution of Filipinos against Spain and follows the life of an Indio in three different phases. A loving historical tribute, it first tells the story of a child church bell-ringer torn between his duties to the Spanish state and as a Filipino, then a pubescent caught in the growing pressures of the revolution, and finally an actor in a rural community escaping his troubled soul.
Running at 96 minutes, the predominantly black and white silent film will be screened with a live piano accompaniment, invoking the atmosphere and nostalgia of the forgotten era of silent films.
21-year old Raya Martin is arguably the most highly touted young filmmaker in the Philippines today. The first Filipino filmmaker to be selected in the prestigious Cinéfondation Residence du Festival de Cannes in Paris, France, Martin is a 2005 graduate of the U.P. Film Institute, 2004 Ishmael Bernal Awardee for Young Cinema at the Cinemanila International Film Festival for his short film "Bakasyon", winner of the Best Documentary winner at .MOV International Digital Film Festival for his Itbayat documentary, "Isla Sa Dulo Ng Mundo", which screened at the prestigious Yamagata International Documentary Festival. The Philippine Premiere of "Maicling Pelicula nang Ysang Indio Nacional" was preceded by successful screenings at a number of prestigious international film festivals all around the world. It has thus far been selected for the following festivals:
Official Selection, 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam 2006
Official Selection, 13th Titanic International Filmfest Budapest
Official Selection, 30th Hong Kong International Film Festival
Official Competition, 19th Singapore International Film Festival 2006
Official Selection, 49th San Francisco International Film Festival
Closing Film, 3rd Isola Cinema Film Festival
Official Competition, 42nd Pesaro Film Festival
Parallel Screen, 17th Festival International du Documentaire de Marseille
You are all invited to watch and celebrate Philippine Independent Cinema on Philippine Independence Day, with a Filipino film truly unlike any that you have seen before. Please spread the word. Entrance is 50 pesos.
Written, Directed and Produced by Raya Martin
Co-Produced by Arleen Cuevas
Cinematography by Maisa Demetillo
Production Design by Ligaya Domingo
Edited by Louie Quirino, Anne Esteban
Cast includes Bodjie Pascua, Suzette Velasco, Lemuel Galman, Mark Joshua Maclang, Russell Ongkeko
"Indio Nacional" Film Quotes and Reviews:
"A Short Film About the Indio Nacional (or The Prolonged Sorrow of
Filipinos) by Raya Martin shows all the signs of being in the best
tradition of Apichatpong. In black-and-white, the faux-colonial
imagery, looking as if it has been reconstituted from turn-of-the
century archival footage, is the basis, here, for a secretly dialectic
reverie about the birth of a nation. The experience is enigmatic
enough that its manifest beauty is explicitly checked at its source."
- Jean Pierre Rehm, Cahiers du Cinema
"Raya Martin bases his work - without plagiarism - on the earliest
forms of filmmaking. In fact, he reinvents silent film."
- Gertjan Zuillhof, International Film Festival Rotterdam
"Raya Martin's beautiful paean to the common man, or 'indio,' of the
period is a fascinating work that intermittently rewards patience and
confirms Martin's place as a talent to watch."
- Jay Weissberg, Variety Magazine
"Shot in stately B&W long takes Martin's work recalls the films of
Bela Tarr and Martin's countryman Lav Diaz, but with an eye for
composition and detail all his own."
- Jason Sanders, Filmmaker Magazine
"In marrying the history of a nation with a historical film form
through his unique vision, Martin has created one of the truly
original works of contemporary Filipino cinema."
- Roger Garcia, San Francisco International Film Festival
"Raya stringed together vignettes of the Indio peasants just before
the Spanish arrived with their firearms, and the film's grainy
complexion plus the way it fuses the quasi-narrative with
anthropological artefacts - then transports it all into a
near-subconscious level - are influenced, it seems, by Apichatpong
Weerasethakul's first film, Mysterious Object at Noon. It's not a
flawless movie, but Raya Martin is obviously a name to remember."
– Kong Rithdee, Bangkok Post
"I was struck by the film's daring and often exquisite shifts in tone,
as well as a very particular approach to late 19th century Filipino
history. An early diegetic sound scene brings across the experience of
insomnia like no movie I've seen, before young director Raya Martin
makes a sudden jump into a wholly different (or is it?) realm of
black-and-white silent pictorial storytelling."
-Johnny Ray Huston, San Francisco Bay Guardian