Bona

Director: Lino Brocka

1980 / 85min / DCP

Brocka, the acclaimed Filipino director whose provocative films and staggering prolificity garnered him comparisons to Fassbinder, took his second trip to Cannes with this tale of self-destructive romantic obsession, about middle-class teenager Bona (a terrifyingly committed Nora Aunor, also the film’s producer) who drops out of school and breaks with her family in order to pursue her infatuation with Gardo (Phillip Salvador), a macho bit player in low-budget movies who has a pronounced sadistic streak. Believed lost for years after its negatives were destroyed in a fire, Bona can now be seen looking better than ever in a painstaking new restoration that has helped return one of the supreme masterworks of Filipino cinema to its rightful place in history.

Introduction by Isabel Sandoval on December 6th, at 9pm.