Leading institution: HEAD – Genève
Project leader: Olivier Zuchuat
Organisation: Corinne Maury (Université de Toulouse Jean Jaurès), Marcos Uzal, Olivier Zuchuat (HEAD-Genève & Université de Paris 8)
Partners: EDESTA & ESTCA – Université de Paris 8, PLH/ELH – Université de Toulouse
Funding: Fonds national suisse de la recherche scientifique (FNS), HEAD – Genève
Publication LAV DIAZ : FAIRE FACE, edition Post-éditions, May 2022
Lav Diaz’s cinematic work is deeply ingrained in Filipino culture. It is infused with the political vicissitudes that the country suffers and is moulded by the consequences of the natural disasters that lay waste to the archipelago. His unusually long shots are bound with the fate of those who oppose the system, he marginals and others who are left on the sidelines. Bearing witness to resistance, building a collective memory, sharing waiting times and drawing cinematic tombs for the disappeared and the tortured, Lav Diaz’s tragic frescoes stand tall against silence, amnesia and repression. Underpinned by extreme state violence (martial law, extrajudicial executions, death squads), his films explicitly highlight tyranny and the ferociousness of history. The exploratory filmmaker’s long-lasting aesthetics transpose places of exile (remote forests, the outskirts of the city, spoiled land) into areas of life and suffering, daily landscapes where men reside, take shelter, withdraw and sometimes save themselves. With humanist rage, Lav Diaz confronts the political, ecological and ethical disaster, venturing to address what men do to other men.