Protests from all over the world have followed the arrest in Manila last week of Lino Brocka, the Filipino film director, on charges of suspected sedition. Brocka has been a thorn in the flesh of the regime for many years as a film-maker often at odds with the censor, and as an open opponent of President Marcos.
Last year, his film Bayan Ko was in competition at Cannes, where Brocka made an outspoken attack on the regime which had refused to pass it for home consumption. Later in the year it came to the London Festival, where the film won the British Film Institute's annual award for the most original and imaginative production shown at the National Film Theatre.
Curiously, a short time before Brocka's arrest, the Philippines' censor passed it for showing to adult audiences, though he wrote to a leading publication in Manila stating that the BFI Award was of little importance, being voted on by left-wing students who had attended the London Festival.
In fact, the award was given by a committee, chaired by me as director of the festival and including David Robinson, the film critic of the Times, and senior members of the BFI staff. Among the telegrams in support of Brocka has been one from Anthony Smith, director of the BFI.
In France, where Bayan Ko is currently running, Jack Lang, the Minister of Culture has also sent a protest to the Presidential Palace in Manila, as have the organisers of the Cannes Festival. And Brocka's case has now been taken up by Amnesty International who regard the circumstances of his arrest as highly unorthodox.
Brocka was arrested with another film-maker, Behn Cervantes, at demonstration in the Metro Manila area on January 28. Both had been members of a negotiating panel for a transport union on strike against a rise in petrol prices.
At the time of the arrest, Brocka was reported to have been standing some distance away from the demonstration, and Cervantes to have been standing with some nuns. Both film-makers are reported to have been charged, together with others, as leaders of an illegal assembly, under Presidential Decree 1834, for which the maximum penalty is life imprisonment and for which bail is not permitted.
For Brocka, in particular, this is the unsurprising result of repeated efforts to defend those in trouble with the regime. He has frequently said that he was being watched by the security police, and many of his friends have urged him to leave the country. He has always refused to do so, apart from visits to countries showing his films, because he felt that he should only make pictures in his own country where opposition to the Marcos dictatorship was vital.
The films themselves have never attacked the regime in a didactic fashion but have concerned themselves with stories about the poor of Manila and their continued exploitation. One of the most famous is Manila, which was shown in Britain several years ago after its screening at the London Festival. It is generally regarded as one of the best films from the Third World during the seventies.