ALIPATO: THE VERY BRIEF LIFE OF AN EMBER
Dir. Khavn, 2016
The Philippines. 88 min
In Tagalog with English subtitles

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 – 5 PM
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 – 10 PM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 – 10 PM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26 - 7:30PM

Long live children. Fucking hope of the country and other bullshit. We are the priests. We are the fucking castrators. We are the fucking blood of rats. We are the fucking sweat of roaches. Here classrooms are wasted if they aren’t turned into whorehouses and drug dens.

Mondomanila, 2025. A landscape dominated by tombstones and trash heaps. A gang of child criminals are out for a big score. When they get their chance, the job goes wrong of course and the boss ends up in jail. 30 years later and he’s on the streets again, but everything seems to be exactly as it is. Nothing ever changes in Mondomanila, the kids still spend their days smoking cigarettes and beating each other up while the cops still hang out in the back of a pig slaughterhouse-cum-brothel, stuffing their faces and taking graft. Khavn colors this all with a vibrant, kaleidoscopic production design that combines a documentary eye for real places and people with punk apocalyptic costumes that would feel at home in a Mad Max movie.

Screening with:

CAN & SLIPPERS
Dir. Khavn, 2005
The Philippines. 2 min
In Tagalog with English subtitles

A used can and a foot. A whole world and a garbage heap. All this and less in 2 minutes.

“It might be Khavn’s entire oeuvre’s symbolic focal point. Viewers might swoon over the bravura opening montage, be stunned by the realization that the film’s badass soccer player is actually a one-legged kid hobbling on crutches, and then be blown away when he bends it like Beckham, but there’s always a feeling that, for all it’s joy and playfulness, this is much closer to the ugly truth of the Pinoy condition then one would like to admit.” — Olaf Moeller, Film Comment

RUGBY BOYZ
Dir. Khavn, 2006
The Philippines. 8 min
In Tagalog with English subtitles