JOHN Lloyd Cruz in “Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis”
Berlinale winner, Lav Diaz’s “Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis,” competes in the Arkipel Jakarta International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival, in Indonesia from Aug. 17 to 26. “Hele” is one of 25 films vying for top honors in the fest’s international competition section.
The fest’s website sums up the event as “an open space for cinema and media discourse.” It aims to attain the “development of a cinematic language [defined by] critical thinking—whether mainstream or independent.”
The fest seeks to initiate this “critical discourse … through curatorial programs, symposia and public lectures to broaden [the public’s] knowledge of the ever-changing, cutting-edge aesthetics of cinema.” Bayani San Diego Jr.