Lav Diaz’s 9-hour film ‘Magellan’ starring Gael Garcia Bernal to debut at Cannes

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Award-winning Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz’s nine-hour film about the 16th-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month. 

The festival recently announced a new round of titles for its 78th edition, which will run from May 13 to May 24. Diaz’s “Magellan” is part of the Cannes Premiere section.

Diaz, who is known for his long-form features, recently shared during a masterclass at the Doha Film Festival that he will fight to prevent cutting his nine-hour film down to three hours. 

“Some festivals may just want to show three hours, so the producers compromise, so they will see three hours of it. But I will have the full cut […] They will be having some headaches about it,” he said. 

The film is set to feature a mixture of Portuguese, Filipino, and Spanish actors, including Gael Garcia Bernal as Magellan, Dario Yazbek as Duarte, Angela Ramos as Beatriz, Ronnie Lazaro as Raja Humabon, and Hazel Orencio as Juana, among others. 

Originally titled “Beatriz, The Wife,” the film was supposed to center on the perspective of Magellan’s wife Beatriz Barbosa de Magallanes.

The pair married in 1517 and lived together for two years before Magellan set off on an expedition to Southeast Asia, from which he never returned.

Diaz said that the short version had been retitled “Magellan” and would focus more on the explorer, while the nine-hour cut would include more of Beatriz’s story. 

“I wanted to work on this mysterious woman; I did my research for about six years before starting the film. I discovered a lot, and you can see that with the nine-hour work, but in my research, I found there are many misleading misconceptions. We have to rewrite history about Magellan,” he said. 

Diaz is known for the films “Heremias” (8 hours), “Death in the Land of Encantos” (9 hours), and “Evolution of a Filipino Family” (10 hours), among others.