Arena (1975)

Bayan Ko Pilipinas (Lino Brocka's Philippines) (1987x12)

: 03, 1987

Lino Brocka is the most influential film director in the Philippines, and a leading figure in the civil rights movement. Throughout the period of martial law, he opposed the Marcos regime. In 1985 he was jailed on a trumped-up charge of sedition. Now Cory Aquino is president, but poverty and intimidation are firmly entrenched, and the communist guerrillas, the New People's Army, continue to gain in number. Brocka led a clandestine expedition into the mountains to film interviews with the NPA, and Arena went with him, at a time when real-life events were becoming as dramatic as a Brocka film.