Filipino classic with Hilda Korone makes a splash at Cannes

Over three decades after she first made a splash at the red carpet of the world’s biggest and most prestigious film festival, Hilda Koronel was again at Cannes when a Filipino film was cheered and heavily applauded at the fest’s Classics section. 

Hilda Koronel with husband Ralph Moore. (Twitter)
 
“I am elated and a bit sad at the same time,” she said, as quoted by the ‘Philippine Daily Inquirer’ last Sunday. “I got sentimental upon seeing onscreen the old friends who are no longer with us, like [the late award-winning actor-writer-director] Mario O’Hara. How I wish they could have been here as well.” 

Hilda Koronel with her husband Ralph Moore (R) reunites with Pierre Rissient (L). (Twitter) 
 
Koronel plays the lead role as Ligaya Paraiso in the 1975 drama film ‘Maynila: Sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag’ (Manila: In the Claws of Brightness), directed by the late Lino Brocka, which was screened on May 17 at the ongoing film festival in the southern French coastal city of Cannes.
 
Considered by many as a classic Filipina beauty, Koronel said she was honoured to represent Brocka, a Philippine national artist for film, who died in a car crash in 1991. “It was a momentous occasion … inspiring,” she said. 

Hilda Koronel at the red carpet during the 66th Cannes Film Festival. (Twitter) 
 
In 1978, Koronel, now 56, also made a splash at the Croisette, where ‘Insiang’, another masterpiece of the legendary Brocka, was screened in the Section Parallèlle/Directors’ Fortnight. She also plays the lead role as Insiang in the movie, which was adapted from a teleplay of the same title by O’Hara.
 
She recalled that the highlight of her trip to Cannes 35 years ago was landing on the front page of the daily newspaper ‘France-Soir’, where she upstaged then-Hollywood ‘It’ girl Farrah Fawcett, whose photo was smaller than hers. 

Actress Hilda Koronel. (Twitter)
 
“I stayed only for a few days, but Lino and I were kept busy with pictorials and interviews with French, German and other European journalists,” Koronel said. Last week’s trip, she said, “brought back a lot of wonderful memories”.
 
The ‘Maynila’ film that was shown at Salle Buñuel of the Palais on Friday night is the digitally restored version of the Brocka classic spearheaded by the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP).
 
The restoration was done with the help of Oscar-winning Hollywood director Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation (WCF) and Mike de Leon, cinematographer and producer of ‘Maynila’.
 
Scorsese said that WCF was glad to have been a part in the restoration of ‘Maynila’. “It’s now difficult to watch a good print of Brocka’s movies,” he was quoted by the ‘Inquirer’ as saying. “It was urgent … to participate in this restoration.”
 
In his pre-taped video message for the ‘Maynila’ screening, Scorsese described Brocka as “a giant, towering filmmaker” whose films were “brave, extraordinary, powerful experiences”.
 
Pierre Rissient, the French filmmaker who was instrumental in having Brocka’s films first screened at Cannes in the late 70s, was hopeful for the restoration of more Brocka films after the screening of ‘Maynila’ where ardent film buffs applauded resoundingly and even lingered in the theatre lobby.
 
“I hope this would be the beginning of more restoration projects,” Rissient said. “I know of at least four Brocka films—‘Insiang’, ‘Bona’, ‘Jaguar’ [Bodyguard] and ‘Bayan Ko’ [My Country]—that need to be saved.”
 
Salvatore Leocata, the festival programmer from Brussels, called ‘Maynila’ “a masterpiece” while Philippines’ Lav Diaz, whose ‘Norte, Hangganan ng Kasaysayan’ (North, the End of History) was also screened at this year’s 66th French film fest in Cannes, was amazed at how ‘Maynila’ has remained so “powerful” after all these years from when he first saw it while in college.
 
“My classmates and I kept debating about it afterwards,” he recalled. “It changed my perspective on cinema. It led me to filmmaking. It made me realise that film is not merely entertainment. Cinema could also be a potent tool for discourse.”
 
Adolfo Alix Jr, another Filipino filmmaker whose ‘Death March’, like ‘Hangganan’, was one of the more than 40 films chosen from 1,700 entries to compete in the Un Certain Regard section of this year’s Cannes film festival, said he was excited to see the climax of ‘Maynila’ again.
 
“It is one of the most powerful endings I have ever seen in a movie,” he stressed, revealing that he first saw ‘Maynila’ on VHS when he was still in high school.

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