Mondomanila (2010)

Interesting facts

Mondomanila is a 2012 Filipino experimental musical exploitation horror comedy-drama crime film directed by independent filmmaker Khavn, based on a work by Norman Wilwayco, who also co-wrote the script with Khavn. It premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in January 2012. The film tells the story of teenage antihero Tony de Guzman and the rough neighborhood he calls home.

Background

Khavn, known for his staunch advocacy of guerilla shooting methods, has a reputation for shooting very quickly on a small budget. However, unlike his other features, Mondomanila took Khavn nine years and numerous attempts, to make.

Mondomanila entered production in 2003 but was stopped after the first day because of major miscasting issues. Most of the scenes were scrapped; what Khavn managed to salvage became parts of another film, Mondomanila: Overdosed Nightmare, which premiered at the Cinemalaya International Film Festival in 2008. Writes critic Richard Bolisay:

"This film has lived up to its name—cranky, blasphemous, berserk, carnivorous—for the nightmare is not only overdosed, it is sacrilegious, the darkness is so imperial it looks like a work of evil, a devil of a craftsman Khavn is—and there is no point in deconstructing its stark elements because it only extinguishes the fire. The surrealist at work subscribes to absolute nihilism. The motive is anarchy. The enemy is false religion."

In 2004, Khavn shot Mondomanila: Institute of Poets based on the short story which won a Palanca in 2000. The short film, which starred Filipino actor Marvin Agustin, premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2005, and was singled out by Brazilian critic Jorge Didaco, then writing for Senses of Cinema, as one of the ten best films of 2005.

In between 2004 and 2009, Khavn worked on varying versions of the screenplay; one was a ten-hour epic which, though more faithful to the novel, had to be abandoned for practical reasons: cost would have been enormous and Khavn could not find project backers.

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