Mike De Leon: Self-Portrait of a Filipino Filmmaker | MoMA (2024)

  • Film series
  • MoMA, FloorT2/T1 The Debra and Leon Black Family Film Center

Mike De Leon, the producer and cinematographer of Lino Brocka’s haunting masterpiece Manila in the Claws of Light (1975), is one of Filipino cinema’s most fiercely political and dramatic storytellers in his own right. This complete retrospective, the first ever presented in North America, brings together all of De Leon’s feature films and shorts as a writer and director. De Leon’s films are presented alongside some of the few surviving classic melodramas, musicals, costume dramas, and noir films of the 1930s–’60s to come out of the greatest of all Filipino studios, LVN Pictures, which was founded in 1938 by De Leon’s grandmother Doña Sisang. Inspired by this storied history of popular moviemaking in the Philippines—one he experienced firsthand as a child on the LVN studio lot—as well as by Hollywood and European cinema, De Leon’s own films mix the genres of melodrama, crime, supernatural horror, slapstick comedy, and the musical with blisteringly critical stances toward his country’s history of corruption and cronyism, state-sponsored violence, feudalist exploitation, and populist machismo: the festering legacies of the nation’s colonial past made even more purulent by the dictatorships of Ferdinand Marcos and Rodrigo Duterte.

MoMA’s retrospective includes De Leon’s debut feature, ITIM (The Rites of May) (1976), in a new restoration that premiered at Cannes earlier this year; Kisapmata (1981); AKΩ Batch ’81 (1982); Sister Stella L. (1984); and Citizen Jake (2018); along with Signos, the defiantly subversive anti-Marcos short he made in 1983 with an underground collective of filmmakers and activists; and rare behind-the-scenes production footage from Manila, ITIM, and Moments in a Stolen Dream (1977), shown alongside the features themselves.

Please note: little survives of the film library of LVN studios, and what does survive is generally in poor condition. We nonetheless present these rare films so that New York audiences can experience them for the first time.

Organized by Joshua Siegel, Curator, Department of Film.

Film at MoMA is made possible by CHANEL.

Additional support is provided by the Annual Film Fund. Leadership support for the Annual Film Fund is provided by Debra and Leon D. Black, with major contributions from The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art, and Karen and Gary Winnick.

Events

  • Citizen Jake. 2018. Directed by Mike De LeonA Word from the Director. 2018. Directed by Mike De Leon Film Wed, Nov30, 2022, 6:30p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Tue, Nov29, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Mr. Li. 2019. Directed by Mike De Leon, Tom Estrera III, Carlo FajardaBiyaya ng Lupa (Bounty of the Earth). 1959. Directed by Manuel Silos Film Tue, Nov29, 2022, 7:30p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Sun, Nov27, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Signos (Omens). 1983. Made by Concerned Artists of the PhilippinesAliwan Paradise. 1992. Directed by Mike De Leon Film Sun, Nov27, 2022, 1:30p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Sat, Nov26, 2022, 2:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Kakabakaba Ka Ba? (Will Your Heart Beat Faster?). 1980. Directed by Mike De Leon Film Sat, Nov26, 2022, 7:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Fri, Nov25, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Ibong Adarna (Adarna Bird) and Color Sequences from Lost 1950s Filipino Musicals and Costume Dramas Film Sat, Nov26, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Fri, Nov25, 2022, 6:30p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Sister Stella L. 1984. Directed by Mike De Leon Film Wed, Nov23, 2022, 6:30p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Sun, Nov20, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Huk sa Bagong Pamumuhay (Huk in a New Life). 1953. Directed by Lamberto V. Avellana Film Wed, Nov23, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Sun, Nov20, 2022, 1:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Giliw Ko (My Sweetheart). 1939. Written and directed by Carlos Vander Tolosa Film Tue, Nov22, 2022, 7:30p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Fri, Nov18, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Hindi Nahahati ang Langit (Heaven Cannot Be Shared). 1985. Directed by Mike De Leon Film Tue, Nov22, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Fri, Nov18, 2022, 6:30p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • AKΩ Batch ’81 and other shorts Film Sat, Nov19, 2022, 6:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Sat, Nov5, 2022, 7:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Kisapmata (In the Blink of an Eye). 1981. Directed by Mike De Leon Film Sat, Nov19, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Thu, Nov3, 2022, 7:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Malvarosa. 1958. Directed by Gregorio Fernandez Film Sat, Nov19, 2022, 1:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Thu, Nov3, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Sangandaan (Crossroads). 2022. Directed by Mike De LeonMaynila, Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila, In the Claws of Light). 1975. Directed by Lino Brocka Film Thu, Nov17, 2022, 7:30p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Sat, Nov5, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Anak dalita (The Ruins). 1956. Directed by Lamberto V. AvellanaAn Actor Remembers – Joseph de Cordova. 2006. Directed by Mike De Leon Film Thu, Nov17, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Sat, Nov5, 2022, 1:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Kung Mangarap Ka’t Magising (Moments in a Stolen Dream). 1977. Directed by Mike De LeonSi Boyet, Hilda, Atbp. 1977. Directed by Clodualdo del Mundo, Jr. Film Tue, Nov15, 2022, 6:30p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Thu, Nov10, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Pag-asa (Hope). 1951. Directed by Lamberto V. Avellana Film Tue, Nov15, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Mon, Nov14, 2022, 6:30p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Bayaning 3rd World (Third World Hero). 1999. Directed by Mike De Leon Film Sun, Nov13, 2022, 1:30p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Fri, Nov4, 2022, 7:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Itim (The Rites of May). 1976. Directed by Mike De LeonItim: Isang Eksplorasyon sa Pelikula (Itim: An Exploration in Cinema). 1976. Directed by Clodualdo del Mundo, Jr. Film Sat, Nov12, 2022, 6:30p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Tue, Nov1, 2022, 6:30p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • Mutya ng Pasig (Muse of the Pasig River). 1950. Directed by Richard Abelardo Film Sat, Nov12, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Tue, Nov1, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
  • A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino. 1965. Directed by Lamberto V. Avellana Film Fri, Nov11, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1 Fri, Nov4, 2022, 4:00p.m. MoMA, FloorT2/T1
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Mike De Leon: Self-Portrait of a Filipino Filmmaker | MoMA (2024)

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