1st Edition
The Transformative Cinema of Lav Diaz Aesthetics, Resistance and Resilience
List of contributors ix
List of illustrations xi
1 Introduction 1
CORINNE MAURY AND OLIVIER ZUCHUAT
PART ONE
Violent stories, resurgent history 9
2 Lav Diaz, the possibility of a people? 11
GABRIEL BORTZMEYER
3 Allegoric forms of history in three films by Lav Diaz 23
SYLVIE ROLLET
4 About Servando Magdamag, Lino Brocka and melodrama.
A dialogue with Mac Alejandre and Ricardo Lee 35
5 The need for melodrama 40
CYRIL BÉGHIN
PART TWO
Devastated lands, ritualised lands 55
6 “There is no there there” 57
FABIENNE COSTA
7 The agony and the ecstasy: fragments of discussions between Lav Diaz and Alexander Tioseco on Death in the Land of Encantos 65
8 Existing in the aftermath: a lullaby to the sorrowful mystery and from what is before 74
MAY ADADOL INGAWANIJ
9 On From What Is Before. A dialogue with Lav Diaz and Hazel Orencio 88
10 A creature may hide another 92
PIERRE JAILLOUX
PART THREE
Wounds 105
11 Cruelty, perpetual undertow 107
CORINNE MAURY
12 Shooting Season of the Devil. A dialogue with Lav Diaz and Hazel Orencio 118
13 Caring about the world 123
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE FERRARI
PART FOUR
Acts of creation 129
14 Facing the volcano. A production diary 131
OLIVIER ZUCHUAT
15 About Bazin. A conversation between Lav Diaz and Hervé Joubert-Laurencin 144
16 Unfolding, happening, arising. About Lav Diaz’s situation-shots 153
OLIVIER ZUCHUAT
Bibliography 165
Acknowledgements 169
Index 170
Biography
Corinne Maury is professor in film aesthetics at the University of Poitiers. She has published Marcher au cinéma, lignes d’existences (2024), Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du commerce 1080 Bruxelles (2020), The Sense of Place in Contemporary Cinema (2022), L’Attrait de la pluie (2013) and Habiter le monde. Éloge du poétique dans le cinéma du réel (2011). Her research focuses mainly on contemporary cinema (fiction and documentary), space in cinema (place, landscape, territory) and the relationship between aesthetics and politics.
Olivier Zuchuat is HES associate professor in the film department at HEAD - Geneva (HES-SO). A director and editor, his film credits include Djourou (2004), Far from the villages (2008), Like Stone Lions at the Gateway into Night (2013) and The Perimeter of Kamsé (2020), all of which were released in Europe. He published Attraits de la durée. Plans perdurant et montage intra-plan dans le cinema contemporain (2025) and co-edited the books Montage: Une anthologie (1913–2018) and Lav Diaz: Faire face (2022).
