Lav Diaz’s unique five-hour opus, Batang West Side, is getting a new theatrical release in North America in time for the run-up to its 25th year anniversary next year. The film, released in 2001 and featuring a stacked cast of Joel Torre, Yul Servo, and Gloria Diaz, concerns a Jersey City cop investigating the death of a young Filipino found dead in West Side Avenue. Batang West Side is a powerful portrait of the Filipino spirit in the diaspora.
Despite Lav Diaz’s popularity among cinephiles around the world, Batang West Side doesn’t get enough attention as his longer and more recent works, such as the Locarno Golden Leopard Winner Mula sa Kung Ano ang Noon (2014), the Berlin Golden Bear winner Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis (2016), and the Venice-winning Genus, Pan (2020). This may be due to the film being long unavailable (it is not part of the Lav Diaz retrospective on Mubi) and only a fuzzy and spliced up copy of the film is available on YouTube.
“I hope that audiences can appreciate it as both the embryonic work that it is and, as early as it may have been in Diaz’s career, as a unique masterwork,” says Kani Releasing co-founder Ariel Esteban Cayer. “Very few films flow in the way this one does and unfold with such assurance and inherent mystery and intrigue. I would also add that, in the age of prestige TV, there is something that is strangely reminiscent, familiar, and exciting about it, as if watching Diaz’s own version of a procedural like The Wire.”
The distribution company Kani Releasing is heading the North American release, which will start on April 19. Kani Releasing was also behind the North American release of the restored version of Nora Aunor-Lino Brocka classic Bona, which premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. The restoration was done in collaboration with the French boutique label Carlotta Films.
FIRST ENCOUNTERS
Cayer first encountered the Batang West Side thanks to the 2015 restoration of the Austrian Film Museum (which also did a limited release of the film in home video format). This will be the version that Kani Releasing will be screening theatrically.
“Our goal was to make the film more widely available and put it back in the theaters, where the conditions are ideal for it, as it is five hours long,” says Cayer. “People who love Batang West Side have managed to see it in various ways throughout the years, but I hope giving it an official re-release outside of Austria elevates its profile even more, which is a great honor to work on.”
According to Diaz, the Batang West Side “is an examination of the Filipino consciousness. Why are the Philippines the way they are now? The Filipino people? Philippine cinema? Let’s not be contained and limited to convention and formula; we need to probe and probe, explode the wall of corruption. The perspective is ever historical and ever advancing. Ultimately, the objective of Batang West Side is simple — change. Whoever wishes to hinder this film is an enemy of change. Whoever is an enemy of change is an enemy of Philippine Cinema.”
Film critic Noel Vera called it an “epic picture” that “strangely, refuses to act like an epic–no towering sets, no large-scale battle sequences, no grand displays of emotion or sweeping pageant of historical events. Instead there’s the quiet (a Diaz hallmark) accumulation of story and characters that, when completed, presents a detailed mural of a Filipino-American community, from youngest to oldest, richest to poorest, most sensible to least.”
In the US, Variety called it a masterpiece, saying it is “mesmerizing from first frame to last […] Diaz has balanced pic so carefully that cutting doesn’t seem like a good option, and it’s doubtful a shorter running time would render it more commercial anyway.”
The film has won 10 Urian Awards in 2002, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor (Torre), Best Supporting Actor (Raul Arellano), Best Supporting Actress (Diaz), and Best Cinematography (Miguel V. Fabie III). It has also won Best Asian Feature Film at the Singapore Film Festival in 2002.
life span
Cayer and Kani Releasing co-founder Pearl Chan worked with Diaz for this release. They will also be giving it a home video edition with support from the cast, including Art Acuña and Priscilla Viduya. “It will be a beautiful edition,” says Cayer.
Kani is dedicated to leveling the gaze and furthering the understanding of Asian cinema in North America. The label aims to expand the canon, bolster up-and-coming filmmakers, and reintroduce repertory classics in context.
They have already released magnificent Blu-rays of Filipino films over the years, such as Mike De Leon’s Kisapmata, Glenn Barit’s Cleaners, Lupita Aquino-Kashiwara’s Minsa’y Isang Gamu-Gamo, and Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Karnal.
The plan for Batang West Side is to screen it as much and as far as possible, says Cayer, but acknowledges that there will be challenges. “With the understanding, of course, that it may be a tough booking for cinemas, as they need to carve out five hours in their calendar to do so. But I think word of mouth has been good, and I’m confident it’s a film that people will book for a long time.”
This isn’t Kani Releasing’s first foray into theatrical releases. With their learnings from working on Bona, which was screened in places such as the Academy Museum, Lincoln Center, and the Metrograph in New York.
“Bona was very interesting because all the stars aligned from Cannes onwards,” says Cayer. “[This] didn’t mean it made it an easy release: Filipino cinema is still under-distributed in the West, and awareness remains a work-in-progress, an edifice to which we now hope to add Batang West Side. Diaz, as a filmmaker, is of course in conversation with Brocka and Mike De Leon, so we’re trying to create these connections in our line-up and within cinephilia, one film at a time.”
Check Kani Releasing’s social media accounts for updates on screenings.
