SoSe 2023 Philippino Film Screening: "Kisapmata" (In the Blink of an Eye)

8 June 2023, by AAI Webmaster

Photo: The Movie Database (TMDB), cropped

SoSe 2023 Philippino Film Screening: "Kisapmata" (In the Blink of an Eye)

Thursday, 08 June 2023
16:00 – 18:00

ESA-O (Asien-Afrika-Institut), R. 221
Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1
20146 Hamburg

Open to public! – Admission free!

Language: Tagalog with English subtitles

• Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (Filipino Film Critics)
   – Included in their list of the Ten Best Films of the Decade (1980s)
• Gawad Urian Awards 1981
  Winner of seven awards including:
   – Best Actor
   – Best Supporting Actor
   – Best Supporting Actress
• Metro Manila Film Festival Awards 1981
  Winner of ten awards including:
   – Best Picture
   – Best Director
   – Best Actor
   – Best Supporting Actor
   – Best Supporting Actress
   – Best Screenplay

About Kisapmata:

Kisapmata (In the Blink of an Eye) is a classic from the 2^nd Golden Age of Philippine Cinema. It is regarded as Mike de Leon's best work and is one of the masterpieces of world cinema. A crime-drama-suspense genre film not often seen in the Philippines, Kisapmata tells of a controlling patriarch and ex-police officer and his daughter's struggle to break free from his control. Even after more than 40 years, the film, digitally restored in 2020, still resonates with its psychological and social relevance.

Critic Reviews:

"Even after all this time, the film continues to unsettle, not only because de Leon gives us a very real monster that anticipates many of the paternalistic ogres that continue to dominate our lives – in one form or the other – today, but rather because it shows us a world where he can exist: our own.
        Life Staff (CNN Philippines)

"… every bit as chilling and unsettling as a Stanley Kubrick film… [a] beautifully orchestrated psychological nightmare."
        Gina Tumlos (The Movie Clubbers)

"A work of immense artistic vision by the iconic Filipino filmmaker Mike De Leon."
        Swapnil Dhruv Bose (Far Out Magazine)

"In Kisapmata, [De Leon] drew a line between then-dictator Ferdinand Marcos and … ex-police officer Dadong Carandang (Vic Silayan). Today … monstrous Dadong now resembles Duterte in 4K."
        Aaron E. Hunt (Filmmaker Magazine)

"De Leon's film is an allegory or a symbolic story of Filipino life under fascism."
        Nerissa S. Balce (Philippine Daily Inquirer)

For information on the screening, please also see our flyer.