Kidlat Tahimik with an Inquirer citation and a Guyito stuffed toy INQUIRER PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Filipino filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik won the Caligari Prize in the Forum section of the recently concluded Berlin International Film Festival in Germany for his film “Balikbayan #1 (Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III).”
A mix of historical documentary and fiction, “Balikbayan” tells the story of Enrique of Malacca, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan’s slave and the first man to circumnavigate the world.
In 1977, Kidlat won the Fipresci (International Critics’) Prize at the Berlinale for his first film, “Perfumed Nightmare.”
Sponsored by the German Federal Association of Communal Film Work and Filmdienst magazine, the Caligari award likewise comes with a cash prize of 4,000 euros (P201,714)–“half of which is given to the director and the other half, meant for fund distribution.”
The Caligari jury is composed of critics and curators: Michael Baute, Maximilian Becker, Barbara Fischer-Rittmeyer, Nils Daniel Peiler and Margarete Wach.
“Balikbayan” took 35 years to complete.