WATCH ‘MONDOMANILA” TRAILER
SAN FRANCISCO – A controversial artistic film adaptation of Norman Wilwayco’s triple Palanca-winning short story, novel and screenplay “MondoManila,” which has been described as “Slumdog Millionaire” meets “Trainspotting,” will be released in the United States on June 12, in time for Philippine Independence Day, playing a week at ARENA Cinema in Los Angeles.
The film by award-winning director Khavn De La Cruz also will be released on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and Vimeo on Demand.
“Mondomanila” has received critical praise and extensive festival play including Rotterdam, Edinburgh, Fantasia, Jeonju, Paris and many more. It also enjoyed a prestigious screening at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
“Khavn shakes up film styles to his heart’s content: exuberant video clips, grubby film noir, hyper-realistic documentary and even slapstick – linked by an original story and rousing music,” stated Rotterdam Review.
IndoCine described it as “raw, uninhibited, and unforgiving, a fitting tribute to those films which have tackled urban catharsis.”
Tony de Guzman, the anti-hero, views life as short, brutal and never on your side. His philosophy: Grab what you can, when you can; settle scores; be randy; fefy the rules; cheat the system; tough it out.
Tony knows nothing but tough times in the bleak circus of the slums he calls home. This is his story and the story of the world he lives in: a hopeless, isolated decrepit world gone to seed.
The film inspires passionate reactions. There are those who call it revolutionary, comparing its unabashed obnoxiousness to the films of John Waters, its hallucinatory extremism to Dusan Makavejev’s, and its in-your-face peculiarity to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s.
Alternately, it has been condemned as trash, “the foul creation of a dark master.” Either way, it must be seen to be believed.
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