Brillante Mendoza: From a Filipino director to a French ‘knight’

(Updated 6:33 p.m.) At the 2011 edition of the Italian Film Festival, “MovieMov,” senior Italian cultural officials flew from Rome to join Filipino director Brillante Mendoza on opening night for a rare retrospective called “Homage to Bernardo Bertolucci, Dario Argento, and Brillante Mendoza.”

 

No Filipino director had been accorded the singular distinction of being ranked with the likes of Bertolluci and Argento.

On the evening of Jan. 23, 2014 it is the turn of the French government to honor Mendoza by decorating him with the “Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres” (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters), for collecting numerous local awards and international recognition for his body of films.

 

Mendoza’s film “Kinatay,” starring Coco Martin, won the Best Director award in the 2009 Cannes International Film Festival, where he surpassed Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock” and Pedro Aldomovar’s “Broken Embraces.” The Cannes is considered as France’s foremost film competition.

 

France is elevating Mendoza, 53, to the Chevalier (Knight) in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (French Order of Arts and Letters), one of the highest distinctions conferred on individuals by the French government, because of his “personification of the rebirth of Philippine cinema” and to “recognize his talent and body of works that has found a dedicated audience in France.”

 

Mendoza’s films are commercially shown in France, affording the cinema-loving French audience a glimpse of contemporary Philippine society.

 

In an interview, Martin Macalintal, the French Embassy in Manila’s audiovisual attaché, said the San Fernando, Pampanga-born Mendoza was nominated for knighthood in the Order of Arts and Letters “following the successive selection of his films in the different sections of the Cannes film festival, namely the Directors' Fortnight and Official Competition, and for winning the award for Best Director for Kinatay in 2009.”

 

“This opened doors for Mendoza to work with French actress Isabelle Huppert to take the lead role in his film 'Captive.' To finish the film, he was granted a special Residency Card called ‘Competences et Talents,’ which allowed him three years of residency in France enabling him to complete the post-production of the Captive,” Macalintal said.

 

“Captive,” where Huppert plays the role of social worker Thérèse Bourgoine, was inspired by the 2001 abduction of a group of tourists and missionaries in a Palawan resort mounted by an al Qaeda-linked group. Bourgoine was forced by circumstances to tend to one of her abductors.

 

Macalintal added “Mendoza’s films, beginning from the commercial release of 'Foster Child' in France, have created an awareness in France and in Europe about the contemporary Philippine cinema.”

 

“Mendoza is well-known by the general French movie-goers,” he added.

 

Camille Eva Marie Conde, the French Embassy press officer, said Mendoza's “success as a Filipino filmmaker in France also raised the French public's appreciation for Asian or Southeast Asian cinema.”

 

Supporters and fans of Mendoza’s films consider him as “a living national treasure of independent cinema in the Philippines.”

 

Critics have hailed Mendoza as “a neorealist, and his films depict the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary situations, set against the universal struggle of life, love and death.”

 

Mendoza is the first and only Filipino to have competed in the official selection of all three major film festivals in the word, namely the Cannes, Venice, and Berlin film festivals.

 

He is the first Filipino to win “The Golden Leopard,” the grand prize at the 58th Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland in 2005 for his film, “Masahista,” which was filmed in San Fernando, Pampanga.

 

Among his citations, Mendoza is the first Filipino filmmaker to win the Best Director award at the Asia-Pacific Screen Awards, Asia’s equivalent of the Oscars, for his film “Thy Womb” starring Nora Aunor.

 

Mendoza also received the La Navicella/Venezia Cinema prize given by critics and the “Rivisita del Cinematografo” to the director of “a film considered particularly relevant for the affirmation of human values.”

 

Mendoza is considered as first Filipino and Asian auteur who has been given retrospectives of his films in major European cities, Central Europe, Scandinavian countries, Latin America, North America, and Asia.

 

Critics hail Mendoza as a neorealist, and his films depict the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary situations, set against the universal struggle of life, love and death.

 

Mendoza’s elevation to the French Order of Arts and Letters follows the Oct. 24, 2013 naming by French President François Hollande of Briccio Santos, chairman of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), as a member of the Legion of Honor.

 

Santos, appointed FDCP chair in 2010 by President Benigno S. Aquino, was given the rank of a knight, one of the levels in the five-tiered order of chivalry established on May 19, 1802 by Napoléon Bonaparte, France’s first consul. — KG/VC, GMA News