When Lav met Agnes
Agnes Varda and Lav Diaz at Muralto Park in Locarno. Photo by Hazel Orencio
Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz won the top prize for “Mula sa Kung Ano ang Noon (From What is Before)” at the 67th Locarno International Film Festival on Saturday. His bonus reward: Meeting the French New Wave legend, director Agnes Varda.
The encounter was serendipitous. “We were at the Muralto Park when we noticed the pictorial for the great Agnes Varda!” said Diaz. Varda received the Pardo d’honore Swisscom at the festival.
“The photographers invited me to join them,” Diaz recalled. “I wanted to pay homage, to thank Agnes for her contributions to cinema.”
Actress Hazel Orencio, who won the Boccalino de Oro Independent Critics Award for Diaz’s film, said her director was star-struck. “He kept hugging and kissing Agnes, who just said, ‘So many kisses!’”
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