Lopez Memorial Museum welcomes acclaimed experimental filmmaker Raya Martin, who will discuss the relation between film and history and other aspects of independent film in the Philippines on July 18, 2009. The 25-year old Martin is the first Filipino to be accepted at the prestigious Cinefondation Residence of the Cannes Film Festival and the first Filipino to have two entries at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival (Independencia and Manila).
Martin says, “The history of our cinema tells the history of our country. Movies become historical accounts of a people’s struggle in a particular period. When a movie studio ceases to exist, it marks the death of an historian. What we are left with are the memories of a memory maker. We only stand before what was there that was not ours.”
His video installation called “WMB” is one of the featured works in the exhibition Double Take, ongoing at the Lopez Memorial Museum’s main gallery until September 25, 2009. He will be using Huk sa Bagong Pamumuhay, a production of LVN Pictures, as he goes into the history of film.
Born in 1984, Martin graduated in 2005 from the University of the Philippines Film Institute with a degree in filmmaking. He received accolades for his work at a very young age. His short film Bakasyon won the Ishmael Bernal Award for Young Cinema at the Cinemanila International Film Festival in 2004 and his documentary on Batanes called The Island at the End of the World won the best Documentary film prize at the .mov 2005 film festival. He completed his first feature film Indio Nacional in 2005. In the same year, he was granted a prestigious residency in Paris at the CineFondation, a program for young filmmakers organized under the auspices of the Cannes International Film Festival. He was named Best Director for this film Autohystoria at the 2007 Cinemanila International Film Festival. His film Independencia was the first Filipino film to be selected to the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival where his film Manila with Adolfo Alix Jr. was also shown.
For inquiries call (632) 6312417 or email admin@lopez-museum.org
