Below are some questions posed to director Khavn De La Cruz about his film National Anarchist: Lino Brocka.
What kind of work have you done on archive materials for your film?
Using a makeshift shoehorn, I jampacked all of Lino Brocka’s 60-plus films in the most avant-garde blender I could find in my favorite vintage store here in Mondomanila.
Pressed “P.”
And voila! The healthiest Brocka Smoothie in the universe!
In the film you state that the most difficult thing for a critic is to understand what the purpose of the film is, and where the film wants to go, without superimposing their own vision. Would you tell us what your goal is for this film?
Yes, that is the ghost of Brocka speaking through my mortal mouth.
(All of the intertitles are from Brocka — a deliberate case of found text.)
Brocka was pertaining to fake film critics in the Philippines circa 1970s, 80s — PR writers, non-cineastes — who arrogantly assume/presume that they know everything about cinema which is fortunately elusive by nature.
The goal of “National Anarchist” is to bring Brocka’s zombie ghost back from the dead and annihilate everyone who is corrupt and against Human Rights, Social Justice, & Freedom of Expression.
Would you suggest a few titles of found footage and/or experimental films that have been pivotal for your education and training?
Peter Tscherkassky’s “Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine” & “Outer Space”
György Pálfi’s “Final Cut”
Nicolas Provost’s “Papillon d’amour”
Joseph Cornell’s “Rose Hobart”
Bill Morrison’s “Decasia”
Alexander Kluge’s “News from Ideological Antiquity – Marx/Eisenstein/Das Kapital”.
