By ALI NADERZAD The Philippines is competing this year in Cannes with Kinatay, by Brillante Mendoza. This director was in Cannes as recently as last year with a film named Serbis, about a close-knit family living in and running an adult movie theatre in Angeles. The reception to Serbis was enthusiastic. As my colleague Eric Kohn from Indiewire wryly remarked after last night’s screening, however, the reactions to Kinatay were a lot more mixed. Some audiencemembers clapped while others copiously booed the film as the end credits rolled.
Kinatay, which means ‘massacre’ in tagalog, is one of our favorite films this year at Cannes.