Brillante Mendoza as our Guest

Brillante Mendoza, who was born in 1960, is one of the most interesting and internationally most successful protagonists of the extremely lively contemporary cinema scene in the Philippines. To a large extent, Mendoza's films are made outside of the commercial film industry and feel obliged to an unvarnished and realistic portrayal of present-day Philippine society. He is always interested in a clearly defined space from which he provides dense descriptions of everyday life – spaces that not only form the background of his stories but are themselves autonomous protagonists, be it the porn cinema in SERBIS, the cramped apartments and alleyways of Manila's slums in TIRADOR or the massage salon in MASAHISTA. The spatial limitation is compounded by a temporal one. Most of his films take place on a single day, penetrating the lives of their protagonists with great precision. Mendoza is just as attentive toward the most banal daily actions as he his toward the dramatic and tragic situations that emerge quite unspectacularly in everyday life. Mendoza's cinema is highly physical and characterized by a proximity and permeability regarding all facets of life.