Guinness-worthy PH film

KHAVN at the premiere in the Netherlands

This one’s for Guinness.

Filipino filmmaker Khavn unveiled his 13-hour film, “Simulacrum Tremendum,” at the 45th International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Netherlands last Saturday (Jan. 30). Also a musician-poet, Khavn accompanied the film on piano throughout the marathon screening-slash-free jazz concert.

Organizers dubbed it “the longest musical accompaniment” in cinema history and, apparently, representatives of the Guinness World Records were raring to certify it as such.

“The longest film-concert thus far was a screening of Erich von Stroheim’s four-hour ‘Greed.’ ‘Simulacrum Tremendum’ is nine hours longer,” Khavn, who was in Rotterdam, told the Inquirer via e-mail.

He envisioned the film as a “diary for diarrhea.” He explained: “Both words come from the Hindu-Urdu root word dayaar, which means ‘to give and to receive at the same time.’”

For the past 22 years, Khavn has been recording his many experiences, here and abroad, with various cameras: “Sony Video-8, Hi-8, D-8, Mini-DV cameras (Canon XL1, a small Panasonic), DSLR cameras, GoPro, Zoom, iPhone, et cetera.”

Interestingly, the film can also serve as a catalogue of the swiftly evolving technology throughout the digital revolution—reaching the apex with the iPhone, which practically makes everyone a filmmaker.

With an iPhone, Khavn documented “the daily surreality of Mondomanila, oingo-gonzo travelogue of different countries… an intimate and sometimes indifferent portrait of the world before it explodes.”

Through the years, he has accumulated “over a thousand hours of raw footage.”

He didn’t plan to come up with a film from the get-go, so there was simply no method in the madness.

“I was just enslaved by the camera’s whims,” he admitted. “I wish I had planned it from the very start. I would have properly archived my footage of (filmmakers) Takashi Miike and Aki Kaurismaki; and I would have improperly documented the random celebrities who crossed my fan-boy path: (filmmakers) Terry Gilliam, Jia Zhangke, Kim Ki-duk, Leos Carax and Wang Bing, (musician) Ryuichi Sakamoto and (actress) Tilda Swinton.”

For good measure, Filipino artists also make special appearances in the film—Sharon Cuneta, Mes de Guzman, Joey Ayala and the master of slow cinema himself, Lav Diaz, among other luminaries.

Khavn is reluctant to reveal the exact circumstances surrounding each celeb’s participation in the film.

“That’s the fun part,” he quipped. “It’d be a shame to give it away. You’ll have to watch to see how everyone and everything come into play. See the whole thing. I dare you.”

Personal journey

The way he recalled it, “Simulacrum Tremendum” started as a personal odyssey.

“I’ve been planning to make several 90-minute features from my footage: a portrait of my daughter Aria; the music and underground scene in the late 1990s via my bar Oracafé…  The idea to make a 13-hour epic out of my still-growing video archive was only crystallized last year.”

The more challenging part came during the editing process.

“A poet-friend, Joel Toledo, helped select 36 of my poems used in the film,” he recalled. “Two editors—Carlo Manatad and JD Domingo, aided by an army of assistants—helped choose the images in the film.”

His latest work also serves as a fond farewell to Rotterdam programmer Gertjan Zuilhof.

“The premiere coincided with Gertjan’s last year of programming for Rotterdam,” he said. “Gertjan always chooses my more difficult films—which is quite radical since all my films are not… easy fare to begin with. He likes to challenge the audience and provoke cineastes by continually redefining cinema, which is necessary for the youngest of the arts. Sadly this very anticommercial stance is also very unpopular.”

He waxed poetic: “Films are plants which need soil and sun to live; Gertjan has been my constant gardener in the last 12 years.”

“Simulacrum Tremendum” is the 38th film by Khavn that was selected by the Rotterdam fest. “The programming is diverse and progressive; the parties are always fun,” he said of the festival.