The call for more realistic themes in Philippine films was answered by stage and movie director Lino Brocka. His fresh ideas featured contemporary scenes and brought the film closer to its audience.
This enabled him to capture the Filipino viewing public making him one of the greatest directors ever in Philippine cinema.
Born in Sorsogon, Lino became an avid fan of Hollywood movies and became fascinated in American lifestyle and movie plots. Graduated with honors, he gained a scholarship at the University of the Philippines and took a pre-law course.
He became part of the UP Dramatic Club not as an actor, because of his provincial accent, but as a stagehand pulling curtains. However, his actual directing career started when a friend introduced him to the founder of the Philippines Educational Theater Association (PETA).
He proved his skills in his first movie direction, Wanted: Perfect Mother, a plot based from The Sound of Music. An entry to the Manila Film Festival, the movie gained awards and made a name for him in the industry.
Most of his movies soon won awards for Best Screenplay and Best Director. Aware and sensitive of the times, Brocka made movies that tackled sensitive socio-cultural issues, the struggles of the urban poor and the people’s perspectives of government, among many others.
His movies were acclaimed in the country and abroad. Among his noteworthy classics are Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag, a story of a poor man who went to the city to look for his lost love only to find her tragic fate and Insiang, a film about the life of a slum girl in Manila who was raped by her mother’s lover.
This was the first Philippine film ever shown at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival. And in the following years, his movies Jaguar (1979), “Bona” (1981) and Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim (1984) were all nominated in the prestigious Cannes Film Festival held in France.
Lino Brocka was not just an artist. He was a social activist who portrayed the life and times of the poor, the social ills and the struggles of ordinary Filipinos. He translated his nationalist passions onto film.
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