FNC – National Anarchist: Lino Brocka

Cinema stories section

For many years, Filipino filmmaker Lino Brocka was practically unknown outside his homeland; he finally caught international cinephiles’ attention when Manila (1975) and Insiang (1976) were restored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation. Drawing from a vast body of work comprising some 60 films, Khavn De La Cruz embarked on a massive experimental editing project, organized into sections based on the artist’s favourite themes. The result is an exceptional gateway to a corpus that captures a vast swath of the Philippines’ social history. National Anarchist is also a portrait of a rebel and fierce opponent of the dictatorship of the time. His allegedly accidental death remains a mystery.

*International Film Festival Rotterdam 2023 – Cinema Regained