Film Forno

Made it Ma! Top of The World! I mean A+D Museum!

ONWY screened as part of the 2007 New Filmmakers Series on Thursday August 16th. The screening took place at the Architecture and Design Museum of Los Angeles and was a rousing success despite some technical malfunctions.

The Screening Room

The space was packed and the air conditioning was off due to construction but even though it was broiling in there no one left! They all stayed till the end of the film! One viewer told me he has a major cigarette addiction, he runs outside to grab a smoke every 20 minutes or so, yet he was so wrapped up in the story that he forgot to go out and smoke. That was music to my ears, a sign that the mechanisms of the film are working properly. We want to thank the brave souls that baked for 91 minutes and didn’t flee the theater. We want to thank New Filmmakers LA for choosing our film to launch the series. They are dedicated talented people that love film! Our next scheduled screening is in Estes Park Colorado on Sept. 15 as part of the Estes Park Film Festival. We will be screening a 35mm print at the oldest theater west of the Mississippi! If any of you Film Forno Fans are near there please come on down to check it out. For more information about our screening go to: http://estespark.bside.com/?_view=_filmdetails&filmId=30075584
P.S. Estes Park is home to the Stanley Hotel, made famous in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.

Redrum!

I saw this film when it was first released around 1978 or so, I believe it was at Film Forum in New York City. I heard how this Philipino guy just begged, borrowed and did whatever was needed to make it. Werner Herzog gave him some old film stock he had laying around. ( I think Wim Wenders did the same thing for Jim Jarmusch on his chef d’oeuvre Stranger Than Paradise) Francis Coppola released Perfumed Nightmare through his short lived but admirable Zoetrope Films.

Baby, You Can Drive My Jeepney

The film is told from the point of view of Kidlat Tahimik, a young Philippino cat that drives a jeepney and worships all things American. Especially Rockets , American Space Penises that represent Progress, Power, The Future and specifically Werner Von Braun, the godfather of the USA space race, snatched from Nazi Germany at the end of WWII and chockful of experience from his V2 launches at Peenemunde. Kidlat even forms a Werner Von Braun fan club!

1st Meeting of The Werner Von Braun Fan Club

But as the film progresses Kidlat grows disillusioned with “progress”, his innocent voice over expresses his doubts and finally he disbands the Fan Club. The film is shot on many different film stocks, Super 8, 16mm, color reversal, whatever Kidlat could get his hands on and it adds a stylistic edge that works for this project. It’s like the jeepney that he drives, these are made from left over jeeps from WWII and the ingenious mechanics transform them into fantastic creations and keep them running with baling wire, chewing gum, anything at hand. Here creativity is used instead of money, to me a sign of a good film, actually a good anything! There’s a circumcision scene that’s hard to watch ( In the Phillipines it’s performed at puberty in a ritualized fashion out in the jungle.)

That’s gotta hurt!

Kidlat Tahimik is Tagalog for “Quiet Lightning” and that’s what this film is. A guy from out of nowhere creates a film from almost nothing and it rocks the World Cinema Scene.