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Produced by Aunor's production company Nv Productions and released as one of the official entries to the 6th Metro Manila Film Festival on December 25, 1980, the film was also shown at the Directors' Fortnight of the 1981 Cannes International Film Festival. This year, the iconic film which is considered one of the country's best of all time, is screening in Cannes, in a restored version.

Bona is screening in Cannes Film Festival

Bona is a middle-class schoolgirl who is besotted with a bit actor, Gardo, desperately trying to get his attention. Eventually she manages to do so, despite the fact that the man always seems to be in the company of another woman. The two, however, do not become a couple exactly, since she ends up in his house in the slums, essentially acting as his maid, cooking, ironing and cleaning his clothes and helping him with his baths. When her father...

Quite a notorious production, the recently restored in 4K by the Philippine Film archive “Manila By Night” presents the “nightlife” of Manila in all its sex, drugs, and violence-driven glory, to the point that the censors, after instigation from the former First Lady Imelad Marcos, cut the movie severely and even changed its title to “City After Dark” in order to avoid any association with the nation’s capital. In Udine, the film is presented in its uncut 150 minutes version.

“Manila by Night” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival

The story is rather complicated as it revolves around a plethora of characters: Alex is a schoolboy that also happens to be a folk singer, but at the same time he is a homosexual and drug addict, with his constant wasting of money frequently aggravating his mother, Virgie, who tries her best to “save” her son but frequently fails.

“Insiang” is a landmark for Filipino cinema. It was the first film to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival, the first to be shot in the slums of Tondo, in Manila, while in 2015, Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation picked it for restoration, with the new version playing again in Cannes among a number of other festivals. Furthermore, Lamberto Antonio (occasionally mentioned as the Philippine Salvatore Quasimodo), one of the scriptwriters is considered one of the best Filipino poets, while Mario O’Hara, the other one, was also a successful director who directed a theater version of the film some years later (info courtesy of Khavn).

Poverty, misery, drunkenness, and gambling rule the shanty town of Tondo, where people barely make a living through mostly odd jobs. Insiang is one of the few exceptions of true beauty in this setting, although her life is by no means easier due to the fact.