Afterimage: The Films of Kidlat Tahimik, Indigenius

11/8/12 to 11/18/12

An idol of iconoclasts worldwide, a pioneer of the postcolonial essay film, and the grandfather of the Philippine New Wave, Kidlat Tahimik is committed to documenting and celebrating the “indigenius”-the genius of indigenous peoples. In a rare visit to the U.S., Tahimik joins us over four days to talk about his films, including the influential essay film Perfumed Nightmare and the virtually unknown masterpiece, Why is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow?

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  • Upcoming
    Films
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  • Selected
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  • Past
    Films
  • Past
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Past Films

  • Memories of Overdevelopment and Japanese Summers of a Filipino Fundoshi

    • Sunday, November 18 5 pm

    Kidlat Tahimik (Philippines, 1980–2011). Kidlat Tahimik in person. Filipino documentarian/essayist Kidlat Tahimik presents two of his major works, Memories of Overdevelopment (inspired by the true-life tale of Enrique, Magellan's Filipino slave/navigator), and Japanese Summers of a Filipino Fundoshi, on the bahag, a traditional Filipino loincloth. (74 mins)

  • Home and Abroad with Kidlat Tahimik

    • Sunday, November 18 2:30pm

    Kidlat Tahimik (Philippines, 1990–2006). Kidlat Tahimik in person. Filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik presents several of his globe-trotting personal essay-films/documentaries, including Some More Rice, Roofs of the World! Unite!, Our Film-grimage to Guimares, Orbit 50, and Celebrating the Year 2021, Today. (87 mins) 

  • Turumba

    • Saturday, November 17 8:40 pm

    Kidlat Tahimik (Philippines, 1983). Kidlat Tahimik in person. A Philippine village switches from making small-market handicrafts to international Olympics memorabilia in Tahimik's warm-hearted yet ultimately devastating parable on the global economy, as essential as during its 1983 debut. Both a witty, almost Swiftian satire of the effects of globalization, and a documentary-like portrait of Philippine rural life. (95 mins)

  • Why Is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow?

    • Thursday, November 15 7 pm

    Kidlat Tahimik (Philippines, 1980–94). Filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik and author Christopher Pavsek in conversation. Tahimik's virtually unknown masterpiece chronicles Tahimik and his young son's lives as they traverse the tumultuous 1980s and early 1990s in the Philippines-a great democratic revolution deposes a dictator; a massive volcanic eruption covers the world in ash-and asks how one might build a new and better future out of the disasters. (174 mins)

  • Perfumed Nightmare

    • Tuesday, November 13 7 pm
    Kidlat Tahimik
    Philippines, 1977

    Kidlat Tahimik (Philippines, 1977). Filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik and author Christopher Pavsek in conversation. A Cape Canaveral–obsessed Filipino slowly awakens from his “cocoon of Americanized dreams” in Tahimik's pioneering, proudly indigenous, cheerfully ramshackle essay film. “Makes one forget months of dreary movie-going, for it reminds one that invention, insolence, enchantment, even innocence, are still available to film” (Susan Sontag). (93 mins)

  • Who Invented the Yoyo? Who Invented the Moon Buggy?

    • Thursday, November 8 7 pm

    Kidlat Tahimik (Philippines, 1979). Stuck in the German lands of “Yodelburg,” our hero Kidlat dreams of space and muses on humanity's endless capacity for creativity, whether on the moon or at home in the Philippines. A delightful, self-proclaimed “third-world space spectacle.” (93 mins)