With: Bembel Roco (Julio Madiaga), Hilda Koronel (Ligaya Paraiso), Lou Salbador Jr (Atong), Tommy Abuel (Pol), Jojo Abella (Bobby), Juling Badabaldo (Misis Cruz)
Director: Lino Brocka
Producers: Miguel De Leon, Severino Manotook
Production co: Cinema Artists
Screenplay: Clodualdo Del Mundo. Based on the novel by Edgardo Reyes
Photography: Miguel De Leon
Editors: Edgardo Jarlego, Ike Jarlego
​Music: Max Jocson
REVIEWS

“Widely (and understandably) considered one of the pinnacles of Filipino cinema, Lino Brocka’s devastating, recently restored 1975 melodrama opens with several stunning, grainy black-and-white shots of Manila, striking a beautiful balance between on-the-ground verisimilitude and fable-like eeriness. As the images morph into color (very urban Wizard of Oz), we meet 21-year-old Julio (Bembol Roco), a fisherman who has traveled from his coastal idyll in pursuit of Ligaya (Hilda Koronel), the woman he loves.  She was taken from her home with promises of a better life, but Julio has learned that she was actually sold into the employ of a Chinese pimp.

Julio’s search for Ligaya makes up the story’s overall arc, but for much of the movie, Brocka is more interested in putting his protagonist through the anything-to-survive wringer.  He procures jobs as an underpaid construction worker and as a reluctant gay prostitute. People he befriends either vanish when the going gets tough or die under dreadful circumstances. And always there’s the oppressiveness of the big city, with its overpopulated streets, lurid neon signs and a stench that seems to waft off the screen…”

— Keith Uhlich, Time Out New York

​Restored in 2013 by the World Cinema Foundation and the Film Development Council of the Philippines at Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with LVN, Cinema Artists Philippines and Mike de Leon. Restoration funding provided by Doha Film Institute.
FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Hamilton
Monday, 13 August, 8:00pm

Wellington
Monday, 27 August, 6:15pm

Auckland
Monday, 10 September, 6:30pm

Nelson
Thursday, 20 September, 6:00pm
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