Kidlat tahimik biography of donald
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Kidlat Tahimik
Issue 100
Widely considered the ‘father of independent cinema’ in the Philippines, Kidlat Tahimik made his first film Mababangong Bangungot (Perfumed Nightmare, 1977) with expired film stock, discarded by a German film school. Realised with a budget of just 10 000 deutschmarks (then about $4 000USD),Perfumed Nightmare eventually premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Prix de la Critique Internationale from the Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique (FIPRESCI), as well as the Ecumenical Jury Prize. Praised for being “both real and surreal, poetic and political, naive and wise,” Tahimik’s film is a lighthearted, existential comedy about post and neo-colonialism. It’s also extremely entertaining. Susan Sontag declared, “Perfumed Nightmare makes one forget months of dreary moviegoing, for it reminds one that invention, insolence, enchantment – even innocence – are still available on film.”
Like the director, the protagonists in Tahimik’s films tend to be resourceful and plucky, rooted in the Philippines’ provinces while they long for the prosperous and exotic places they’ve seen in the dream machines of cinema, TV and radio. The worlds of these films – just like the Philippines themselves – are natura
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Dialogue between Kidlat Tahimik suffer Bahia Shehab
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Kidlat Tahimik Interview Part I:
The Perfumed Nightmare... and then?
Perfumed Nightmare took a long time to finish. Can you tell us about the production and the post-production?
Kidlat: With Perfumed Nightmare, I always said it would take five months, four months, six months, and it dragged for two years. I remember that one night after a projection at the Filmhochschule she threatened to throw the film reels into the Isar. My wife and I had agreed that I had a year to finish the film. And then I would take over little Kidlat, and she would do her "Abschluß" [degree] at the Kunstakademie. So she was expecting by May ’76 that it would be her turn. But the editing of the film took another year.
I think, I finished the almost final version or at least a showable version in April or maybe even March 1977. I started looking for a festival and true to my promise, I told Katrin, I am going to Paris and other places, and I’ll bring little Kidlat along. I just had my backpack, and I had Kidlat in one arm and a plastic bag with my two film reels. We jumped on trains, we hitchhiked to Paris, and Avignon, then we were going to London and Edinburgh. I would just knock on the door and say: “I have a film. Can you look at it?” For me, I really felt the festival was just a way to g