Taking leave from their jobs at a gold mine, three workers journey to their home village on foot through the spectacular yet unforgiving wilderness of the mythical island of Hugaw. As time passes and their conversations intensify, buried histories emerge and a sense of psychosis invades the scene. As ever, Lav Diaz’s exquisitely subdued black-and-white images and patient rhythm lend a Brechtian register to the drama; almost always filmed from the same fixed distance, each scene is an immaculate tableau vivant. Behind the film’s folkloric façade, Diaz once again taps into the collective memory of defiant struggles against the tyranny of both contemporary Filipino society and colonial brutality, centred on the timeless image of men walking – one of the key traits of Pan. (Hyun Jin Cho, BFI)
Lav Diaz
Lav Diaz (Philippines, 1958) became internationally known through his Philippines trilogy: “West Side Kid” (2001), “Evolution Of A Filipino Family” (2004) and “Heremias” (2006). With independent production methods, Diaz's films, usually of long duration, reflect the lives of Filipinos and suggest that salvation is possible through social struggle. “Death In The Land Of Encantos” (2007), a 9-hour film, received special mention at the Jeonju Film Festival in South Korea in 2008, while 8-hour "Melancholia" (2008) won the Horizons Award at the Venice Film Festival. The film “The Woman Who Left” (2016) won the Golden Lion of the Venice Film Festival. The Athens Avant-Garde Film Festival screened, in Greek premieres, the almost 6-hour film "From What Is Before" in 2014, which won the Golden Leopard in the Locarno Film Festival, and the 4-hour film "The Devil's Hunt", in 2018. The film “A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” (2016) won the Silver Bear in the Berlin Film Festival (2016), while his film ‘Genus Pan” won the Horizons Award for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival.
