Henrico's Farm (Ang Saka Ni Henrico)
26 - 27 Aug29 - 30 Aug, 2 - 3 Sep & 5 - 6 Sep
Tue, 6pm
Wed, 6pm
Sat, 12pm
Sun, 12pm
25% SIFA FRIEND DISCOUNT
20% discount for students, NSFs and seniors.
4h, intermissions included
Performed in Tagalog, with English translation
Film is commonly perceived as the most enchanting medium of expression today, casting its spell on audiences from all walks of life. For the first time, Lav Diaz, the prolific 2016 Golden Lion award winner (Venice Film Festival) and the 2016 Silver Bear winner (Berlinale) for different films, chooses Singapore as the location for his new screenplay, Henrico's Farm. In doing so, SIFA audiences are offered a rare opportunity to be on a film set and witness one of Southeast Asia's greatest contemporary film auteurs at work.
With Henrico's Farm, Diaz once again hews issues close to his heart, inspired by a real-life encounter with a Filipino migrant worker in Frankfurt. His new film is about the irony of domestics as "lifers", women who serve life sentences away from home and loved ones, embracing alternative homes in alien lands.
The film begins in Frankfurt, where Lailani, now 65, awaits a plane to Manila. She is returning home to the Philippines for the first time in 30 years. En route home, she delays her return by stopping over in Singapore. Her interactions with her fellow Filipinos help her reflect on the nature of her loss, the cycle of sacrifice and longing that marks them all.
Gripped by the fear of returning home to a life she has left behind but is still intricately connected to, she finds moments of enchantment among other lost souls. They have created their ways of living with disenchantment through a Dreamtime that shelters them from the storms of trauma. Henrico's Farm tells an individual and a collective story of sacrifice, struggle, displacement and torment in the world at large.
In Tagalog, with English translation
Commissioned by Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA).
72-13 is located at 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road, Singapore 239007
Lav Diaz is a filmmaker who directs, writes, shoots, and edits his own films. Since 1998, he has made more than 20 films, and won several top international awards, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival 2016, the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival 2016 and the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival 2014. His works have also been presented at the film festivals of Cannes, Rotterdam, Toronto, Busan and more. The Venice Film Festival calls him "the ideological father of the New Philippine Cinema". He is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2010, the Prince Claus Award of The Netherlands in 2014 and The Radcliffe Fellowship of Harvard University, 2016-2017.