Brocka in a brave new world

It's time to feed the hackneyed scripts and copycat plots to the shredder. At a time when many mainstream local productions start to smack of the same telenovela or fantaserye sequence, young directors such as twenty-nine year old Sigfreid Barros-Sanchez are clearing a path through the repetitive rubble for the brave, new world of Philippine independent cinema.

His tools are works such as “Ang Anak ni Brocka” (finalist in the Cinema One Originals Digital Film Festival 2005) and “Lasponggols” (finalist, full-length feature category of the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival 2005), previously screened at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the University of the Philippines Film Institute.

Mockumentar(t)ist

Sanchez was into varsity basketball, political science, writing, and alternative/underground music (not necessarily in that order) when he first viewed independent shorts by Jon Red and Roxlee in Humanities class way back when the peso was not as severely devalued as now. By 1999, he forayed into film after joining the 11th Ricky Lee Scriptwriting Workshop and studied directing under Marilou Diaz-Abaya in Ateneo. In 2000, he joined the 10th Cinema-As-Art Filmmaking Workshop at the UP under Tikoy Aguiluz and Raymond Red. In between, Sanchez also worked as a script reader for Viva Films, wrote and acted for TV shows and indie films, and took on advertising jobs while raising three kids.

These varied influences would later on define the 'feel' and vision of Sanchez' works, which (like that of many other indie film-makers) defy easy categorization. “Lasponggols”, a black comedy about two small-time film workers masquerading as cinema bigwigs in a remote barrio, is also an observation into the Philippine mainstream film industry. Meanwhile, Sanchez uses fiction to draw out truth in the mockumentary entitled “Ang Anak ni Brocka”. Here, A TV documentary crew pursue possibly the biggest gamble of the ratings game: an investigative report into the supposed existence of the celebrated and controversial Lino Brocka's son.

Their frenzied search for the late director’s missing progeny yields interviews with an array of reel and real-life characters: Brocka's province-mates, family, slum dwellers, unsuspecting 20-something college coeds, tambays along the street, co-workers in the film industry, and comrades in the activist movement.

The speculative—and protracted-- search for Brocka's elusive son takes them from Nueva Ecija (Brocka's hometown) to the University of the Philippines in Diliman, from stuffy offices of cinema workers to the slum areas of Brocka's films, from picket lines to gay bars and alleys. The protracted search also sheds light into many other details of Brocka's life, details that are largely lost to the twenty-something, post-EDSA 1 generation: the director’s homosexual orientation, his promdi roots at a time when UP was more socially “stratified”, his early exposure to theater and cinema as a stage-hand and actor, his quirks and ethics as the legendary film director, his being gay, his endless compassion as a sibling, and his passion for the masses as a fiery cultural worker and aktibista.

While the investigation and cut-throat competition from a rival network station yields an unexpected but equally intriguing conclusion, Sanchez's characters realize that the search has not been that futile nor foolhardy at all. They may have lost a scoop, but found themselves and a little bit more of Lino Brocka instead.

Brocka in every Pinoy

In 'Anak ni Brocka', Sanchez makes clever use of the “mockumentary”--mock documentary--format as a narrative means of telling the various truths about Brocka's life and work. Sanchez manages to intersect scripted satire and spontaneity, parody and preaching: raw reactions and carefully-scripted performances, clips from the director's films with present-day shots of these same sites, sound bytes and pontifications. Sanchez juxtaposes the actual and the contrived and finally ferrets out truths through fiction.

The film is certainly not a glossed-over eulogy nor something akin to a commemorative plaque: it tries to depict Brocka complete with all his flaws and foibles. But what makes 'Anak ni Brocka' more compelling for the contemporary crowd is its power to bring us back to the maw of what the late director stood for. Sanchez reclaims Brocka for the masses by bringing his memory back to the ordinary Juan dela Cruz, by bringing the film back to the alleys and slums of Manila which formed an integral part of the director's landscapes.

Sanchez democratizes Brocka. He makes his memory accessible and tangible not only to his colleagues in cinema, but to the ordinary person. Brocka is not only for the intelligentsia, the bakla, the tibak, but for all those who know how it is to be lost, poor, fatherless, oppressed and vulnerable. The beauty of Sanchez's film is that it makes one realize that Brocka's struggles are not exclusive to a small coterie of connoisseurs, but to every person who knows how it is to live with passion and pride: how it is to stand by being Filipino, and gay, and militant; how it is to side with the masses; how it is to demand nothing but the best; how it is to call for change and indignation in the face of injustice and lies.

Sanchez' way of representing the late director's life is certainly irreverent and witty, bordering on the blasphemous for some. But what better way to pay tribute to a great man—better than laying laurel wreaths or creating marble busts-- than to infuse an awareness of and passion for the same things Lino Brocka stood for in life in one's audience?

In the end, the entire search for Brocka's lost progeny reaches its conclusion in its metaphorical, rather than biological, roots. The point of it all is underscored in a scene where the weary reporters trudge through a demolition-prone squatters area, searching for the twenty-something man named Angelino dela Cruz who held a megaphone to his mouth and rallied the urban poor to fight for their rights. A local who claims that the boy has since then left the slums to wage a “higher level of struggle” reaffirms his faith that the guy was indeed a child of the late director. “Madaling pekein ang histura, pero hindi ang ugali at buhay ni Brocka,” he says.

It's the 'little people' that count

The success of 'Anak ni Brocka' is based on its sincerity of intention. Sanchez belongs to a brave, new generation of Filipino/a film-makers who are out to tell the truths of our time, although not always through the direct and straight-to-the-point interrogation of documentary film-making (another of the notable developments in contemporary Philippine film).

For all the tongue-in-cheek parody and street-smart satire they exude, 'Sig's' films are out to represent the realities of the marginalized and to document the peripheral. For Sanchez, the practice of independent film-making was a venue to give the little people of Philippine cinema and society a time to be represented on their own terms.

While he has also directed popular music videos (such as Kyla's 'Til They Take My Heart Away' and Sugarfree's 'Hari ng Sablay', for which he was named the Best Director at the recent Awit Awards), Sanchez frankly admits that he has no illusions of these being the penultimate product of artistic expression and vision.

“Sa films na ginawa ko, I feel I have an obligation na na gawin siyang pangmulat ng mata. Sa music videos, busog sila sa pisikal na aspeto. Sa films ko I want them na mabusog sa utak at mas lalong magutom pa at mauhaw na maghanap ng mga ganitong klaseng pelikula,” he explains.

Sanchez is aware of the limitations of his forays into indie film-making as a form of social commentary. “My films will not change the state of the film industry kasi malaking sindikato na ang mainstream cinema...pero [they] can create an awareness sa mga nangyayari sa loob ng industriya, lalo na doon sa mga hindi nakakapasok,” he said.

The highest affirmation of one's vocation comes from the very people the artist intends to reach out to. In Sanchez's case, it came from the twenty-somethings of today, the generation that which was practically non-existent when Marcos was booted out and which was barely into puberty when EDSA 2 came around.

“The best feedbacks I got for Brocka were from the students themselves who tell me after the screening na 'salamat po, kasi hindi namin kilala si Lino Brocka until we watched your film', he says.

It also came from the appreciation from the “little people” of the Philippine industry: the technicians, the utility boys, the clappers, the writers and artists, the entire collective crew of labor that makes big productions possible.

“The biggest comment I got [for Lasponggols] was when they were showing it sa Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) during Cinemalaya. The projectionist, his crew, and even the ushers of CCP thanked me for making a film that [voiced] out the concerns of the little people like them. Hindi man sila taga-pelikula, nakaka-relate sila dun sa problema ng mga characters na taga-pelikula na mabababa ang suweldo, walang SSS, at pinaka-inaabuso,” he said.

Of course, the avowal to reach out to this audience necessitates the use of strategies to popularize film as a public practice. Sanchez is aware of the cultural and economic barriers that bar the masses from viewing movies, and sees the need to go “indie” in terms of the distribution of cultural products such as films. If one can't bring the man or woman in the street to the cinema, then take the cinema to the streets.

“Tayo na mismo ang lumapit sa audience. Dalhin nating sa mga squatters area at mga eskwelahan ang mga pelikula natin...hindi sila pupunta sa mga sinehan kasi wala silang pera o may mas mahahalagang paggagamitan nito,” he said.

“The Indonesian, Malaysian and the Korean young film-makers, isasampa lang nila sa pick-up van nila mga gamit nila at ipapalabas ang mga pelikula sa iba't ibang towns at schools na madadaanan nila. Naniningil lang sila ng pang-gas at pantsibog tapos larga na ulit. Dapat may ganoon tayong attitude,” Sanchez enthuses.

Such a practice is being done, for instance, by progressive and equally independent film-makers from groups such as Southern Tagalog Exposure, SIPAT, and TUDLA. Their documentaries--on issues ranging from human rights violations arising from militarization, urban poor youth, and the Hacienda Luisita massacre—are being projected on makeshift screens in picket lines, plazas, and classrooms.

“Punk's not dead”

For Sanchez and other indie film-makers, the recent recognition and support for their works is positive in the sense that may inspire another generation of artists who will continue with the vision and spirit of indie film-making. He encourages younger film-makers to “watch as many films as they can, listen to as many good songs and lyrics as they can, shoot films with their cameras for as long as they finally create their own obras, and finally be sensitive to the things around them because they are part of society and not just mere lookers”.

But more than being just reflective of what they see in society, Sanchez challenges younger film-makers to be critical, to question the status quo and its aesthetic and even political standards of Philippine cinema in order to come up with new ways of seeing.

“Siguro, kailangan mo lang ilabas yung “punk” in you, the activist in you na 'anti-' sa halos lahat. Then you'll see and discover new things in film-making,” he says.

[An]d don't forget the kid in you, the passionate kid in you,” he adds.

Despite the current state of the film industry, Sanchez looks forward to the day when Filipinos will begin to define more clearly and more explicitly a national aesthetic for Philippine cinema, when we will see “younger filmmakers who will be armed with very, very good and original stories that will tell very, very Filipino films to the world,” he said.

“We just copy trends now. Asian horror, Iranian films, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Korean love stories, etc,” he enumerates. “Kung may sampung indie filmmakers na magkukuwento ng mga istoryang very honest sa totoong kalagayan ng bansa...we'll really see a new wave of films na bumabangga talaga sa sistemang nakaugalian na,” he says.

“Takot na tayo sa katotohanan. Nakalimutan natin na hindi natapos ang laban nung mamatay sina Brocka at Bernal. Nagsisimula pa lang,” Sanchez asserts.

“Andami pang tulog. Andami pang hindi mulat,” he says, referring to the current state of the nation. But for as long as film-makers prevail in the conviction that images can be used to change the world, however futile it may sound to the jaded ear, we can always wager that Philippine cinema will continue to be relevant to its audiences in the same way that Brocka's opuses delivered their own slaps back at the dictatorship back then.

In a time when fleeing a politically and economically-unstable country seems a tempting option, Filipinos can always find strength in the fact that film-makers such as Sanchez will always be there with their cameras and scripts as part of the struggle: to direct, to act, to write and speak, to clear the cluttered path of images lying ahead of us and to clean up the mess left behind. He may not always be seated in the director's chair or standing in the spotlight, Sanchez foresees. But like the little people of Lasponggols, he will always be on call when needed.

“Kahit taga-timpla ng kape at taga-serve ng tubig gagawin ko. Basta kasama pa rin sa gera,” he ends. #