Season of the Devil

Filipino musical drama, selected in competition for the Golden Bear at Berlin Film Festival, set amid the militia violence of the Marcos dictatorship in 1979. A husband looking for his wife, a doctor who disappeared while setting up a clinic in a remote village, finds himself in a community terrorised by barbaric torture in this almost entirely sung film.

"Preparing to shoot a film noir, Diaz (From What is Before; The Woman Who Left) was caught up by political developments in his country and around the world. 'The pattern was horrifying and deafening. We were witnessing a world enmeshed in political cataclysms and mindlessly sliding in an abyss of barbarism,' he says. Diaz changed tack and, out of a sense of urgency, made this cautionary tale.

"It’s 1979 and militias conduct a reign of terror in villages through propaganda, and physical and psychological torture. The poet and activist, Hugo Haniway, sets off determined to find his wife, who has disappeared after setting up a village clinic. A powerful depiction of a terrible past tragedy, Season of the Devil is also a terrifying warning for the present." (Sydney Film Festival)

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