“ANG ARAW Bago ang Wakas”
After winning the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlinale for “Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis,” Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz won in another German film fest.
Diaz’s 16-minute work, “Ang Araw Bago ang Wakas,” won the Principal Prize at the 62nd International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, held last May 10.
Diaz’s film competed with two other works, France’s “If It Was” by Laure Prouvost and Finland’s “Retrospective” by Salla Tykka.
Diaz’s entry takes place on the eve of a storm and features ordinary Filipinos reciting Shakespearean lines. The jury hailed Diaz’s entry as “a work of political urgency…a short film [that] is both elaborate and succinct…Here, otherwise canonical text arrives as a…site of last resort.”
The award comes with a cash prize of 4,000 euros. Bayani San Diego Jr.