Independencia

The film is set in the early 20th century when the Philippines became an American colony. Director Raya Martin’s idea was to shoot in black and white, from a frontal angle, often with a painted backdrop, in the manner of the photographs of the time.
So I shot on Fuji 500 with standard Zeiss lenses, the black and white was done in DI afterwards. I shot everything in variable speed, with continual, very minor speed changes and with a lot of filters, to get this "old movies" look.

We did a big prelight to prepare all the effects, day, night, sun, overcast, stormy weather, etc. My team was entirely Filipino, quite a big crew actually, a lot of electricans, and many set decorators who changed the placement of the forest trees almost for every shot. There are some very beautiful sequences, notably the night storm scenes with rain, wind and lightning.
We obviously had very long days, but apparently a two-week production period is quite normal there. A single sequence is shot in day exterior, in a hand-held camera documentary fashion, it is meant to be a newsreel of the time, and serves as a kind of interlude in the middle of the film.
I could not do the color timing, as I was shooting another film, but the result is very good, except for some shaking movements that were added, I think, to simulate a lack of steadiness of the cameras of the time.

A very experimental film in its design, a very exciting artistic experience...
The film was at last year’s Cannes festival, as part of Un Certain Regard.

All the equipment, the lab, the negative, the timing... everything is Filipino, with simply a French co-production, and some French funding.

(Translated from French by Benjamin B)