Internationally acclaimed indie filmmaker Lav Diaz will be receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Parangal ng Sining, the annual awards ceremony of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) honoring the evolution of the country’s film industry.
Known for provocative films such as Norte the End of History, The Woman Who Left, and Season of the Devil, Diaz has cultivated a career by creating some of the longest narrative films on record. “Why Lav? No further explanation needed,” FDCP Chair Jose Javier Reyes said in a media announcement of the awardees. “This is the man whose film made Meryl Streep say, ‘Your movie rearranged the molecules of my mind.’”
Diaz is one of four awardees who “helped shape — and continue to shape — the direction of Philippine cinema,” according to Reyes.
The co-founder of the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival and one of the most prolific actresses and directors in the film industry, Laurice Guillen, will also be a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award. Having directed major films such as Tanging Yaman, Salome, and I Love You, Goodbye, Guillen is truly a force to be reckoned with when it comes to the world of cinema.
Another award recipient is Charo Santos-Concio, most recognized as the host of the Philippines’ longest-running TV drama anthology series Maalala Mo Kaya, which first premiered in 1991. Santos-Concio is also the former president of ABS-CBN Corporation from 2008 to 2015.
Acting-wise, Santo-Concio is just as accomplished, having starred in director Mike de Leon’s Itim and Kisapmata, Lino Brocka’s Gumapang Ka Sa Lusak, and Lav Diaz’s The Woman Who Left.
Finally, actor and former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada, who Reyes praised not just for his work as an actor and producer, but also for his support of the charity organization Movie Workers Welfare Foundation (Mowelfund), rounds up the Lifetime Achievement Awardees. Before his controversial tenure as president began in 1998 and culminated in EDSA II, Estrada was best known for his portrayal of tough, burly, no-nonsense men in action movies such as The Moises Padilla Story and Sa Kuko ng Agila.
The ceremony is set to take place on April 11 at Seda Vertis North in Quezon City.
