OPEN27/4: INTERVIEW WITH LAV DIAZ

INTERVIEW WITH AWARD WINNING DIRECTOR

MR. LAV DIAZ

Why do you make films that run for hours and hours? What’s the rationale behind it?

“I’m free. My films are free. I’ve liberated my cinema. I’ve emancipated it. I am not a prisoner of that two-hour or one hour and a half cinema. To confine my work on that market-imposed practice would be moronic. How dare I call myself an artist if I’m not even free with my canvas and brush? Why would I surrender my praxis to profit-making? Everybody knows that popcorn and coke are lethal. Why would I equate my cinema with bad cholesterol? I’m beyond that since Batang West Side.”

People have been wondering if you do films with awards in mind at the expense of the commercial aspect.

“The only reason why I make films is that I really love cinema. I make films for cinema. An award and a so-called market are consequential. They happen because there’s my cinema. Festivals invite my films. Museums,gallaries and institutions exhibit my films.

Describe your struggle to get to where you are now

“Hard work. Lots of sacrifices.”

Who are the film makers that you admire and what did you learn from them?

“They early days, of course, there was Lino Broca and Ismael Bernal. The whole gamut actually as I practically ate cinema then; Chiquito, Dolphy, Fernando Poe. Jr, the kung fu movies of Hong Kong, the spaghetti westerns, James Bond, even the bomba movies. I didn’t think of directors during those times. Nang lumaon, nang magka-isip ako, lumutang na lang ang issue ng pagkumpositor, may author. Siya pala ang gumagawa. I started paying attention. I started assuming that persona, that so called maker or creator of god. I understood being. Cinema is being”

Name 10 films that left a mark in your mind and heart and WHY?

“So many films really. I don’t have a Top 10, even a Top 100. But there are films that kept me going bak akin to the guitar pieces that I would immediately play and float upstream once I get hold of the instrument. The works of Tarkovsky are a true Jerusalem and Mecca for me. In his wors, it’s holy. You got there to a pilgrimage always. It’s holy. You go there to seek you soul. Making cinema is more about the soul”

How is your life/routine like when you’re making a movie?

“It’s a duality. I am alone and at the same time, I am part of a team. The struggle to achieve a vision is a solitary pursuit. To articulate the journey toward achieving the vision, particularly in cinema, you would need other hands”

Does the routine alter the way you live, etc.?

“I live cinema. It’s art of my being. I’m a father, a grandfather, a lover and a filmmaker. It’s a continuum and a constellation.”