LAV DIAZ: JOURNEYS
London Gallery West, University of Westminster
Please join us on Saturday 18 February for a gallery conversation with Prof Lucia Nagib (University of Reading) and Prof Ashley Thompson (SOAS) accompanying the first major exhibition in the UK of films by Lav Diaz, one of the greatest radical artists of contemporary cinema.
Diaz’s films carry the legacy of third cinema and their critical exploration of political messianism. Film theorist Lucia Nagib and art historian Ashley Thompson will discuss the entanglement between the aesthetically radical and the theological.
Saturday 18 February, 14.00, London Gallery West, Westminster School of Media, Arts and Design. Free of charge and all welcome.
Please RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lav-diaz-journeys-conversation-series-tickets-31347598511
Exhibition: 27 January - 12 March 2017
London Gallery West is proud to be the first London venue to present six films by independent Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz. The gallery space has been transformed into an inviting cinema environment to screen a rotating programme of Diaz’s extraordinary epics.
Diaz describes himself as a storyteller who makes films about the struggles of his people. His films tell quiet tales of everyday sorrow and resilience, and of the existential quest of a people betrayed by the postcolonial nation state. His films demonstrate a radical reworking of melodrama that extends the possibilities of cinema by combining physical cinematic realism with poetry, modernist literature, painterly landscape, musical improvisation, theatrical performance, ritual intensity and duration.
Shot mostly in black and white, Diaz makes notoriously long films with the economy of means afforded by digital. Diaz’s method of filmmaking exemplifies an organic process that merges fictional storytelling with the material density and tempo of the locality of shooting. Astonishing rhythmic pacing creates a powerful dialectic between the microscopic gestures and steadfast movements of powerless bodies, the immensity of natural and historical forces, and spectral presence.
Diaz was winner of the Golden Lion at the 2016 Venice Film Festival, the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer award at the 2016 Berlin Film Festival, among other prestigious prizes. He is a Radcliffe–Harvard Film Study Center Fellow. Retrospectives of his work have recently been held at the Jeu de Paume museum, Courtisane Festival, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
Diaz will be in attendance in March for an international symposium on his films and artistic practice and the broader issues they raise in relation to contemporary cinema, post-colonial politics, and the challenges of viewing and exhibiting long moving image works, hosted by the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media, University of Westminster.
Screening programme schedule:
From What is Before (2014), 338 minutes
Philippines 1970, two years before the declaration of martial law. A poet returns to his village.
Friday 27 January to Thursday 2 February, start times 9.00 and 15.00
Heremias (Book One: The Legend of the Lizard Princess) (2006), 510 minutes
A timid yet resolute vendor seeks answers about the theft of his cow.
Friday 3 February to Thursday 9 February, start time 10.00
Death in the Land of Encantos (2007), 540 minutes
Shot in the Bicol region immediately after a devastating typhoon. A left intellectual and poet returns from Russia to his hometown.
Friday 10 February to Thursday 16 February, start time 10.00
Batang West Side (2001), 300 minutes
A Jersey cop investigates the murder of a young Filipino on West Side Avenue.
Friday 17 February – Thursday 23 February, start times 9.00 and 15.00
A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery (2016), 485 minutes
A cinematic dialogue with José Rizal’s foundational Filipino novel El Filibusterismo set during the Spanish crushing of Filipino independence. The wife of revolutionary leader Andres Bonifacio searches
in the forest for the body of her husband.
Friday 24 February – Thursday 2 March, start time 10.00
The Woman Who Left (2016), 226 minutes
Inspired by Tolstoy’s God Sees the Truth, But Waits. A woman wrongly imprisoned is released after 30 years and goes in search of the man who put her there.
Friday 3 March – Sunday 12 March, start times 10.00 and 15.00
The exhibition screenings are free of charge and open to all. You do not need to register on Eventbrite to attend the screenings.
Symposium: Friday 3 March to Sunday 5 March
University of Westminster, Regent Street Campus
The exhibition culminates in an international symposium on Diaz’s films and artistic practice and the broader issues they raise. Diaz will attend a special 35mm screening of Batang West Side at Regent Street Cinema on Sunday 5 March.
Details of the symposium and screening will follow very shortly on:
Exhibition website: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/about-us/our-galleries/london-gallery-west
Exhibition Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/lavdiazjourneys/
Regent Street Cinema website:
https://www.regentstreetcinema.com
Exhibition and Events co-curated by: May Adadol Ingawanij, Michael Mazière, George Clark, Julian Ross
Acknowledgements: MUBI, Asian Film Archive, Austrian Film Museum, Films Boutique, Second Run, NANG Magazine
Visitor Information:
London Gallery West, The Forum,
University of Westminster
Watford Road, Harrow, HA1 3TP
Admission Free
Opening hours: Daily, 9am - 9pm
Nearest Tube: Northwick Park, Metropolitan Line
Pay-and-display parking available.
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7911 5970
Email: a[log in to unmask]
Website: www.westminster.ac.uk/london-gallery-west
The University of Westminster is a charity and a company limited by guarantee. Registration number: 977818 England. Registered Office: 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW.
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