FILM AND BROADCAST ARTS

LAMBERTO AVELLANA

(February 12, 1915-April 25, 1991)

Lamberto V. Avellana, director for theater and film, has the distinction of being called "The Boy Wonder
of Philippine Movies" as early as 1939. He was the first to use the motion picture camera to establish a
point-of-view, a move that revolutionized the techniques of film narration. Avellana, who at 20
portrayed Joan of Arc in time for Ateneo's diamond jubilee, initially set out to establish a Filipino
theater. Together with Daisy Hontiveros, star of many UP plays and his future wife, he formed the
Barangay Theater Guild which had, among others, Leon Ma.Guerrero and Raul Manglapus as members.
It was after seeing such plays that Carlos P. Romulo, then president of Philippine Films, encouraged him
to try his hand at directing films. In his first film Sakay, Avellana demonstrated a kind of visual rhythm
that established a new filmic language.

Sakay was declared the best picture of 1939 by critics and journalists alike and set the tone for
Avellana's career in film that would be capped by such distinctive achievements as the Grand Prix at the
Asian Film Festival in Hong Kong for Anak Dalita (1956); Best Director of Asia award in Tokyo for Badjao,
among others.

Lamberto Vera Avellana was a prominent Filipino film and stage director. Despite considerable
budgetary limitations that hampered the post-war Filipino film industry, Avellana's films such as Anak
Dalita and Badjao attained international acclaim. In 1976, Avellana was named by President Ferdinand
Marcos as the first National Artist of the Philippines for Film.

MANUEL CONDE

(October 9, 1915-August 11. 1985)

Born on October 9, 1915 and christened Manuel Pabustan Urbano, Manuel Conde grew up and studied
in Daet, Camarines Norte. In the decades before and after World War II when Philippine society was
being inundated by American popular culture, Conde invested local cinema with a distinct cultural
history of its own through movies that translated onto the silver screen the age- old stories that Filipinos
had told and retold from generation to generation for at least the past one hundred years. Among the
narratives that Conde directed and/or produced for the screen were three of the most famous metrical
romances in Philippine lowland culture: Siete Infantes de Lara, Ibong Adarna, and Prinsipe Tenoso.

Through the more than forty films he created from 1940 to 1963, Manuel Conde contributed in no small
measure to the indigenization of the cinema, specifically: by assigning it a history and culture of its own;
by revitalizing folk culture with urgent issues, fresh themes and new techniques; by depicting and
critiquing Filipino customs, values and traditions according to the needs of the present; by employing
and at the same time innovating on the traditional cinematic genres of his time; and by opening the local
cinema to the world.

With a curious mind and restless spirit that could not be contained by what is, Conde went beyond the
usual narratives of the traditional genres and ventured into subject matter that would have been
deemed too monumental or quixotic by the average producer. Conde dared to recreate on screen the
grand narratives of larger-than-life figures from world history and literature, like Genghis Khan and
Sigfredo.

GERARDO "GERRY" DE LEON

(September 12, 1913-July 25, 1981)

Gerardo "Gerry" De Leon, film director, belongs to the llagan clan and as such grew up in an atmosphere
rich in theater. Significantly. De Leon's first job - while in still in high school - was as a piano player at
Cine Moderno in Quiapo playing the musical accompaniment to the silent films that were being shown
at that time. The silent movies served as De Leon's "very good" training ground because the pictures
told the story. Though he finished medicine, his practice did not last long because he found himself "too
compassionate" to be one, this aside from the lure of the movies. His first directorial job was "Ama't
Anak" in which he directed himself and his brother Tito Arevalo. The movie got good reviews. De Leon's
biggest pre-war hit was "Ang Maestra" which starred Rogelio de la Rosa and Rosa del Rosario with the
still unknown Eddie Romero as writer.

All of the films for which he won Best Director also won Best Picture at the FAMAS, namely Sawa sa
Lumang Simboryo (1952), Hanggang sa Dulo ng Daigdig (1958), Huwag Mo Akong Limutin (1960), Noli
Me Tangere (1961, adapted from the novel of the same title), El Filibusterismo (1962), Daigdig ng Mga
Api (1965), and Lilet (1971). One of his unfinished projects was Juan de la Cruz (1972) with Fernando Poe
Jr.

He is known to fans of cult horror films for the handful of 1960s horror movies he directed, some co-
directed with his friend Eddie Romero and co-financed with American money. These films included
Terror is a Man (1959), The Blood Drinkers/ Blood Is the Color of Night (1964), Curse of the Vampires/
Whisper to the Wind (1966), Brides of Blood (1968), and Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969). Roger
Corman hired him in 1971 to direct his gritty Women in Prison film Women in Cages (1971), featuring
Pam Grier as a sadistic prison warden and Philippines sex symbol Sofia Moran. De Leon died on July 25,
1981, at age 67.

EDDIE ROMERO (July 7, 1924-May 28, 2013)

A screenwriter, film director and producer, Eddie Romero is the quintessential Fillipino filmmaker whose
life is devoted to the art and commerce of cinema spanning three generations of filmmakers. His film
"Ganito Kami Noon...Paano Kayo Ngayon?," set at the turn of the century during the revolution against
the Spaniards and, later, the American colonizers, follows a naïve peasant through his leap of faith to
become a member of an imagined community. "Aguila" situates a family's story against the backdrop of
the country's history. "Kamakalawa" explores the folkloric of prehistoric Philippines. "Banta ng
Kahapon," his 'small' political film, is set against the turmoil of the late 1960s, tracing the connection of
the underworld to the corrupt halls of politics. His 13- part series of "Noli Me Tangere" brings the
national hero's polemic novel to a new generation of viewers.

Romero, the ambitious yet practical artist, was not satisfied with dreaming up grand ideas. He found
ways to produce these dreams into films. His concepts, ironically, as stated in the National Artist citation
"are delivered in an utterly simple style - minimalist, but never empty, always calculated, precise and
functional, but never predictable."
Romero is especially known to horror film fans for his three "Blood Island" films from the late 1960s -
Brides of Blood (1968), The Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969) and Beast of Blood (1970), which he
directed, co-produced by "Hemisphere Pictures" (which was composed of Romero, Kane W. Lynn and
Irwin Pizor). Romero later called his American-financed "cult" films - including the "Blood Island" series -
"the worst things I ever did".

FERNANDO POE JR. (August 20, 1939-December 14, 2004)

Ronald Allan K. Poe, popularly known as Fernando Poe, Jr., was a cultural icon of tremendous audience
impact and cinema artist and craftsman-as actor. director, writer and producer."

Poe was born in Manila on August 20, 1939. After the death of his father, he dropped out of the
University of the East in his sophomore year to support his family. He was the second of six siblings. He
married actress Susan Roces in a civil ceremony in December 1968. He died on December 14, 2004.

Poe dropped out of college to work in the Philippine film industry as a messenger boy, and was given
acting roles in subsequent years. Starting as a stuntman for Everlasting Pictures, he was given a starring
role in the film Anak ni Palaris (Son of Palaris) at the age of 14. The film, however, was not a big hit. In
1956, the film Lo' Waist Gang made him popular, and the film was such a hit that low-waist pants
became a fad.

He established FPJ Productions in 1961 and later organized other film companies. In 1963, he testified
against criminal gangs, known as the Big Four, who extorted money from the film industry. In 1965, he
shared the lead in The Ravagers (in the Philippines this is titled Only the Brave Know Hell), a film
depicting the United States and the Philippines working together against Japanese war time occupation.
The film is considered one of the most influential Filipino films.

LANG DULAY (August 3, 1928-April 30, 2015)

Using abaca fibers as fine as hair, Lang Dulay speaks more eloquently than words can. Images from the
distant past of her people, the Tbolis, are recreated by her nimble hands - the crocodiles, butterflies, and
flowers, along with mountains and streams, of Lake Sebu, South Cotabato, where she and her ancestors
were born - fill the fabric with their longing to be remembered. Through her weaving, Lang Dulay does
what she can to keep her people's traditions alive.

There are a few of them left, the traditional weavers of the tnalak or Tboli cloth. It is not hard to see
why: weaving tnalak is a tedious process that begins with stripping the stem of the abaca plant to get
the fibers, to coaxing even finer fibers for the textile, then drying the threads and tying each strand by
hand. Afterward, there is the delicate task of setting the strands on the "bed-tying" frame made of
bamboo, with an eye towards deciding which strands should be tied to resist the dye. It is the bud or
tying of the abaca fibers that define the design.

She was only 12 when she first learned how to weave. Through the years, she has dreamed that,
someday she could pass on her talent and skills to the young in her community. Four of her
grandchildren have themselves picked up the shuttle and are learning to weave.

With the art comes certain taboos that Tboli weavers are careful to observe, such as passing a single
abaca thread all over the body before weaving so as not to get sick. Lang Dulay never washes the tnalak
with soap, and avoids using soap when she is dyeing the threads in order to maintain the pureness of
the abaca.