Signed: Lino Brocka (1987)

In 1970, Filipino film director and political activist Lino Brocka won an award for best screenplay at the Manila Film Festival, for the very first film he ever directed – ‘Wanted: Perfect Mother’. Over the course the following two decades, Brocka directed upwards of 60 titles for film and television, and solidified his distinction as one of the most significant Filipino filmmakers in the history of Philippine cinema.

‘Signed: Lino Brocka’ is an intimate conversation with an artist who brought the same passion for making the Philippines (and the world as a whole) a better place, to his work behind the camera. This 123 minute feature, which won the 1988 Peace Film Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, captures how Brocka’s passionate and energetic soul in person was seamlessly conveyed on-screen in his films. It shows just how thin and permeable the line was between his world as a filmmaker, and his world as a political progressive and fervent critic of the oppressive Marcos rule in the Philippines. Despite being branded as a “troublemaker” who often found himself at odds with the authorities, Brocka’s acute sense of the ins and outs of the film industry, his deep understanding of the underlying truths of Philippine societal issues, and his playful, subversive eye as filmmaker allowed him to leave a legacy far greater than the sum of its parts after his untimely death in a car crash in 1991.