With striking black & white photography, this critically-acclaimed observational documentary from Philippine master Lav Diaz (whose newest film, The Woman Who Left, recently won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival) takes stock of the devastation wrought by typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) on the Philippine coastal town of Tacloban. The film, which follows three children as they cope with the disaster—scavenging for food, telling stories, playing amid looming ships run aground on the town’s main street, and diving from others that still sit in the sea—is a moving reflection on climate change and human resilience. (Description courtesy of Grasshopper Film)
~ Join us before the screening for a reception and launch party for MUBI's new Lav Diaz retrospective.
Beginning in October, curated online cinema MUBI will be presenting an exclusive one-year retrospective of the films of Lav Diaz entitled "It's About Time: The Cinema of Lav Diaz." MUBI will release a new title each month in chronological order, starting with EVOLUTION OF A FILIPINO FAMILY on 10/8. Visit mubi.com/acropolis for a free 30-day trial.
A mesmerising, beautiful film.
- Brad Mariano, 4:3
This is radical reportage and proof of the enduring ability of captured images to open up our perceptual pathways.
- Robert Greene, Sight & Sound
Far from being just an occasional, festival-sponsored venture into documentary territory, Storm Children, Book One must be considered a manifesto for Diaz’s samizdat “free cinema”.
- Michael Guarneri, desistfilm
Just as the central focus of From What Is Before emerges in typically unhurried fashion, Storm Children is equally willing to take its time in mapping out its young protagonists’ environs before they are properly introduced... [Diaz's] shift in documentary tactics feel[s] oddly like a narrative blossoming into life.
- James Lattimer, MUBI Notebook
Through documenting the storm children and their families, Lav Diaz also reconsiders the Philippines’ social history––not through an orthodox chronology of crucial people and events, but via outbursts and disruptions of time-place in all their absurdity and illogicality, via stories of the marginalized and under-represented.
- Ma Ran, Senses of Cinema
(Available to download after screening date)