Kidlat Tahimik wins a Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize
Manila, Philippines - Kidlat Tahimik was recently selected as the Arts and Culture Prize laureate for Fukuoka Prize 2012.
The Fukuoka Prize (Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize) was established in 1990 through the collaboration between academia, businesses, and the city authorities to honor outstanding achievements by individuals or groups/organizations in preserving and creating the unique and diverse culture of Asia. This year marks the 23rd anniversary and there have been 88 prize recipients from almost every region of Asia in the last 22 years. The aim is to foster and increase awareness of the value of Asian cultures as well as to establish a framework within which Asian can learn from, and share with, each other. The award ceremony and related official events are held every September in Fukuoka.
Kidlat Tahimik is a leading Asian independent filmmaker who involves himself in every single step of filmmaking — from scriptwriting through shooting, editing, acting, and producing to directing. By doing this, he has made a great contribution to global filmmaking culture, and has won international acclaim for his unique style of presenting a distinctively Filipino combination of third-world self-consciousness and pride, wrapping this up in his own individual sense of humor.
In 1977, his first film, Perfumed Nightmare received the FIPRESCI Award (International Critics Award) at the Berlin International Film Festival, and was shown in the USA in 1981. This film won him fame in the international world of film production, and had an enormous influence on younger Asian filmmakers. By applying an original method of intermingling fiction with elements of documentary, he presents a naive Filipino driver who is suddenly sent to Paris with his jeepney and rushes around the city in total confusion. Amidst the laughter, there are some sharp barbs at the self-righteousness of the developed countries and at the underside of development.
This film was followed by a series of idiosyncratic films, including Who Invented the YoYo, Who Invented the Moon Buggy? and I am Furious Yellow ‘94; Why is Yellow Middle of Rainbow? The former is about a young man who is possessed by a wild fancy that he should play yo-yo (a Philippine invention) on the moon, and makes a successful lunar voyage in a homemade rocket constructed from ordinary household goods. The latter reveals the turbulent recent history of the Philippines through a home movie recording a son growing up.
As a standard-bearer for independent filmmakers, he has continued to be active in making and screening films. At screenings of his films, he performs sketches and dances with a company from the Igorot people. In the field of art, too, he often stays in Takedera in Hanno city (Saitama prefecture) and Echigo Tsumari (Niigata prefecture) to make installation art and films. His artistic work is borderless. Since cofounding the Baguio Arts Guild in 1986, he has done much to help train young artists. In Fukuoka, too, he has performed in Ohori Park, and mounted an exhibition and a film show at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum.
