Raymond Red
is one of the most familiar names associated with short-filmmaking in the country. A product of Ateneo de Manila as well as the Philippine High School for the Arts, he took up painting at the College of Fine Arts of the University of the Philippines in Diliman. He was a veteran of annual short-film contests like those staged by the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines in the '80s. Ang Magpakailanman; Kabaka; Ang Hikab; Kamada and Pelikula comprised his initial foray into the realm of alternative filmmaking. He finally made his crossover to the mainstream with acclaimed biopics that are nevertheless independently produced, Bayani and Sakay. Both were heaped with praises. The former was nominated for best picture in 1992 at the Star awards. The latter copped special prizes in the 1993 Manila Film Festival and proceeded to vie for the top plum at the star Urian and Famas awards. His films have been exhibited in several international film festivals. Plans for his third full-length feature, Makapili are now in full swing.
(New Directors/New Directions in Philippine Cinema, July 1997)
Born to Epifanio Red Sr. and Leonor Lucas, Raymond Red studied painting and photography at the Philippine High School for the Arts at the National Arts Center in Mt. Makiling, Los Banos, Laguna. Awakened at thirteen by legendary Fritz Lang's Metropolis, his father's camera became his brush with which to paint moving images. While pursuing his studies in the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines (U.P.), Red had the opportunity to view more classic and contemporary German and Russian films at the U.P. Film Center. This serendipitous introduction to cinema led him to abandon altogether his interest in painting, formally withdrawing from college to become a protege of Virginia Moreno, poet and playwright, UNESCO commissioner, and founding director of the Film Center. This critical shift in interest marks the beginning of his journey to perfecting his craft as a filmmaker. It was at the U.P. Film Center's Cinema-as-Art workshop where Red made his first super 8mm film, Ang Magpakailanman (Eternity), in 1983.
Exposed to and encouraged by the annual competitions of the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, Red continued to develop his skills as a Mowelfund Institute grantee in 1984, producing other super 8mm films and moving on to the 16mm format. Kabaka (Enemy) in 1983, Ang Hikab (The Yawn) and State of Being (Kamada) in 1984, Pelikula (Film) in 1985, Mistula (Likened To) in 1987, A Sketch for the Skies in 1988, and Pepe in 1999 synthesize, according to critic Nestor Torre, Red's signature-style: "visual poetry, symbolic images, and ability to address some key issues related to the human condition." Taking notice of the young filmmaker's artistic prowess, philosophical breadth, and raw productivity, world-renowned Filipino director Lino Brocka and British film critic Tony Rayns' stamp of approval became his passport to screening his thought-provoking films at major international festivals in Asia, America, and Europe. Red's participation in these festivals helped him established his reputation as an independent filmmaker, a master of short films with "a talent on a Wellesian scale," according to Rayns.
For Red, the 1990s was an empirical leap from alternative cinema to feature-length historical films premised nonetheless on creative independence. The accolades he received from the previous decade earned him an Artist-in-Residence grant at the German Academic Exchange Institute in Berlin in 1990. Funded by ZDF (The Second GermanTelevision) and Christoph Janetzko, he made his first full-length feature Bayani (Patriot) from 1991 to 1992. This 16mm film on the Philippine Revolution of 1896, which was enlarged in a 35mm format, debuted at the 1992 Berlin Festival's Forum of Young Cinema, was televised a month later in Germany, and competed at the Tokyo Film Festival. With a modest budget and mixed reviews, Red ventured further into the mainstream. Long buried within the cracks of history, Sakay resurrects decades of conflict between the Filipinos and American soldiers and meditates on a syncretic-based utopia led by revolutionary messiahs like Macario Sakay on whose life the film is based. Sakay premiered at the 1993 Manila Film Festival, winning the Gatpuno Antonio Villegas and the Lingap ng Inang Maynila awards. Finally, at the 1993 Rotterdam Film Festival, Red received the Hubert Bals Award to develop a screenplay for his third feature-film Makapili (Collaborator). According to Red, as the film "traces the roots of the Makapili movement and draw[s] historical parallels to the present political situation," it narrates the lives of Filipino folks during the tail-end of Japanese occupation and the unspoken conflict within - loyalty or betrayal - that unwittingly transforms them as enemy collaborators. Rendered anonymous in their bayong hoods, which gives them power and immunity to arbitrarily point fingers at the guerrillas among the civilians, this project reminds one of Arthur Miller's The Crucible and its exploration of the haunting probability that the accusers are not always holy. A fearless undertaking, Makapili remains a vision in progress, and Red hopes to attract the attention and support of the film industry and corporate world to finance its production. As to the matter of audiences, Red states, in a candid interview with critic Alex Brosas, that he is going global.
Married to Sheila Nicolas, photographer and writer, with whom he has two sons, Mikhail and Nikolas, Red realized that there exists an economic force that perpetually disturbs the cradle of artistic autonomy. "Jumping from the independent cinema raft to the advertising cruise liner was," observes Lourd Ernest de Veyra, "a financial decision." De Veyra further notes with piquancy that "people thought that [he] sold his soul to the advertising industry, trading the guerrilla-avant-garde-absurd-surreal spirit for glossy fast-food and instant noodle commercials" and the expanding music video enterprise. Yet Red's reluctant compromise with the publicity machine of capitalism became the doorway to reinventing the commercial industry itself, by applying the techniques he had learned in filmmaking to frame his campaign ads. This was a four-year period of silence nonetheless. Until Cannes.
First mapped by Lord Brougham in 1834 - according to travelogue records - Cannes remains a glamorous palm-fringed seafront for the paparazzi and their prey - the rich and famous. And at the 53rd Cannes International Film Festival, Red made history with his thirteen-minute descent to the moral and metaphysical underworld, Anino (Shadow). Selected out of 716 submissions for the short film category to compete with 10 other entries of equal caliber, the five-member jury composed of jury president and Belgian director Luc Dardenne, Italian director Francesca Comencini, French director Claire Denis, Mauritian director Abderrahmane Sissako, and Academy-award winning American actress Mira Sorvino-awarded Red the first Palme d'Or of the Philippines. Unprecedented as he is, Red's victory in Cannes represents but a continuity of the few independent and commercial Filipino filmmakers achieving local and international acclaim for their work, be it with an award or a screening opportunity. It is to be noted that Kidlat Tahimik (a.k.a. Eric de Guia) was the first ever to earn an award in an international festival, the International Critics Prize at the 1977 Berlin Film Festival for his Ang Mababangong Bangungot (Perfumed Nightmare). Although a non-recipient of the Grand Prix, the late Lino Brocka, known for his visceral allegories and social realism, screened his films in Cannes in1981 and, with Mike De Leon, in 1982.
Yet one would be ahistorical in charting the development of Red as a serious filmmaker without taking into account the direct influences of the German expressionists, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey; as well as the writings of Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, and Samuel Beckett to which his films bear an unintentional resemblance Red proudly carries the insignia of personal and professional struggle -as a Filipino and as a filmmaker-here and abroad. A firm believer in creative cinematic innovation, the journey that he began in 1983 continues. Cannes is a breathtaking precipice, a triumphant stopover that affords him a magisterial view of the vast cinematic frontier. Yet he returns to Diliman - indeed, to the U.P. Film Center - to celebrate his beginnings. To decode Raymond Red, one must look back to his roots and examine his choices. And this forensic adventure yields new discoveries about a painter-turned-independent filmmaker who holds great promise.
Pearlie Rose S. Baluyut
(Code Red, June 2000)
