Kidlat Tahimik

Directing

Kidlat Tahimik

Born 1942-10-03 · Baguio City, Benguet, Philippines

Eric de Guia (born October 3, 1942 in Baguio City, Philippines), better known as Kidlat Tahimik (a Tagalog translation of "silent lightning"), is a film director, writer and actor whose films are commonly associated with the Third Cinemamovement through their critiques of neocolonialism. One of the most prominent names in the Filipino film industry, he has garnered various accolades locally and internationally, including a Plaridel honorarium for Independent Cinema. He is dubbed by fellow filmmakers and critics as the "Father of Philippine Independent Cinema".

Acting credits

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser poster
7.3

The film follows Kaspar Hauser, who lived the first seventeen years of his life chained in a tiny cellar with only a toy horse to occupy his time, devoid of all human contact except for a man who wears a black overcoat and top hat who feeds him.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

1974

Japanese Summers of a Filipino Fundoshi poster
8.0

Kidlat Tahimik, a director and performer, sought to recreate relations between the body and filmed image seen through "Asian eyes." This groundbreaking project took the form of a documentary which Mr. Tahimik directed and in which he performed himself in order to show his own thinking about the different views of the body held by the "East" and the "West."

Japanese Summers of a Filipino Fundoshi

1996

A Movie Capital poster
6.0

This film is a record of the first Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. It reflects the various ways the festival was given shape by nascent global changes embodied by Perestroika, the Tiananmen Square massacre, and many other contemporaneous events.

A Movie Capital

1991

Perfumed Nightmare poster
7.2

Kidlat, a Filipino jeepney driver, is fascinated by the idea of the American space programme and by Western society as a whole. When he moves to Paris, disillusionment sets in as his dreams are gradually shattered.

Perfumed Nightmare

1979

José Rizal poster
8.8

Accused of treason, Dr. Jose P. Rizal awaits trial and meets with his colonial government-appointed counsel, Luis Taviel de Andrade. The two build the case and arguments for the defense as significant events in the central figure's life prior to his incarceration unfold. Upon hearing Rizal's life story, Taviel begins to realize that the accused not just is innocent but exhibits in fact all the qualities of an extraordinary man. When the mock trial unreels, Taviel is all set to act as the prime advocate for his client as Rizal himself is about to give an earth-moving speech to defend his honor and address his countrymen. Meanwhile, the Spanish authorities have worked out the vast political machinery to ensure a guilty verdict. A revolution waits in the wings.

José Rizal

1998

Shaman Wars poster
NR

Three powerful shamans fight it out in a series of bizarre encounters over an a-go-go dancer. Their final encounter ends disastrously for all three, while the a-go-go-girl ends up acquiring all their powers.

Shaman Wars

1982

Lucid poster
NR

A national artist delivers a powerful message urging us to embrace and celebrate our cultural heritage, highlighting its richness and greatness, and encouraging us to avoid being mere imitators of modern society.

Lucid

2023

Bulakna poster
NR

An observation of post-colonial economic relations through the intersecting trajectories of two Filipino women: one preparing to leave her native island to work as a domestic in Europe, the other to return for good.

Bulakna

2025

BalikBayan #1: Memories of Overdevelopment Redux VI poster
NR

As the ultimate enfant terrible of Philippine cinema, avant-gardist Kidlat Tahimik refuses to settle on anything, whether it’s the telling of a colonial past, or any version of this film, which he’s been making and revising for nearly four decades. BalikBayan, which means “returnee” in Filipino, is partly about the homecoming of the historical figure Enrique of Malacca, a Malay who Tahimik first played and brought to the screen in 1979. As the slave of the 16th-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan he circumnavigated the Earth, before returning home as a free man. Old footage of Enrique, played by the young Tahimik, is mixed with the fictional story of a mysterious old man, played by the present-day Tahimik, and documentary footage of a contemporary artist community in Baguio, in northern Philippines. In this version, Redux VI, Tahimik continues his quest to reconsider the Philippines’ colonial legacy. Shot on 16mm (1979–1980s) and video (1990s–2017).

BalikBayan #1: Memories of Overdevelopment Redux VI

2017

Shaman Showman: The Life and Work of Roberto Villanueva poster
NR

A documentary film by filmmaker couple Egay Navarro and Rica Concepcion. It focuses on the life of Baguio artist Roberto Villanueva, known for his distinct approach to artmaking that included community participation.

Shaman Showman: The Life and Work of Roberto Villanueva

Balikbayan #1: Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III poster
NR

Magellan, the famous navigator, met his untimely death in the Philippines before he could circumnavigate the globe. Ironically, it was his slave and translator Enrique who most likely was the first to achieve the historic feat.

Balikbayan #1: Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III

2015

Cinemartyrs poster
NR

A young filmmaker is bent on recreating forgotten massacres from Philippine history, but when she begins shooting at a site where 1,000 men, women, and children were slaughtered, angry spirits are awakened and the lives of her team and the local villagers are put in peril.

Cinemartyrs

2025

A Man Who Became Cinema poster
NR

Masato Hara made his directorial debut in high school in 1968 and achieved a reputation as a young prodigy. Many years later, he continues to make films and show his old experimental 'live-screening' films, but is saddled with massive debts. This film follows eight years in his life.

A Man Who Became Cinema

2018

Who Invented The Yoyo? Who Invented The Moon Buggy? poster
7.5

Stuck in the German lands of “Yodelburg,” our hero Kidlat dreams of space and muses on humanity’s endless capacity for creativity, whether on the moon or at home in the Philippines. A delightful, self-proclaimed “third-world space spectacle.”

Who Invented The Yoyo? Who Invented The Moon Buggy?

1979

First Light poster
8.0

An elderly nun witnesses a young construction worker's fatal accident, compelling her to question the ethical principles of the institution she has devoted her life to.

First Light

2026

I am Blushing poster
9.0

"I am blushing" - Swedish comedy about a film crew traveling to the Philippines to find environments for a movie.

I am Blushing

1981

Ode to Dreamers poster
NR

A machine capable of recording ideas directly from the mind is invented, and an out-of-work comedian suffering from depression uses it to learn if he still has the gift to make people laugh.

Ode to Dreamers

2015

Philippine New Wave: This Is Not a Film Movement poster
4.8

Documentary profiling the directors involved in the loose Philippine New Wave filmmaking movement.

Philippine New Wave: This Is Not a Film Movement

2010

Illogical Patterns of a Logical Parallelism poster
NR

A silent film by Jet Leyco.

Illogical Patterns of a Logical Parallelism

2011

Behind the camera

Japanese Summers of a Filipino Fundoshi poster
8.0

Kidlat Tahimik, a director and performer, sought to recreate relations between the body and filmed image seen through "Asian eyes." This groundbreaking project took the form of a documentary which Mr. Tahimik directed and in which he performed himself in order to show his own thinking about the different views of the body held by the "East" and the "West."

Japanese Summers of a Filipino Fundoshi

1996

Japanese Summers of a Filipino Fundoshi poster
8.0

Kidlat Tahimik, a director and performer, sought to recreate relations between the body and filmed image seen through "Asian eyes." This groundbreaking project took the form of a documentary which Mr. Tahimik directed and in which he performed himself in order to show his own thinking about the different views of the body held by the "East" and the "West."

Japanese Summers of a Filipino Fundoshi

1996

Roofs of the World! Unite! poster
NR

Experimental documentary about roof-making.

Roofs of the World! Unite!

2006

Roofs of the World! Unite! poster
NR

Experimental documentary about roof-making.

Roofs of the World! Unite!

2006

Perfumed Nightmare poster
7.2

Kidlat, a Filipino jeepney driver, is fascinated by the idea of the American space programme and by Western society as a whole. When he moves to Paris, disillusionment sets in as his dreams are gradually shattered.

Perfumed Nightmare

1979

Perfumed Nightmare poster
7.2

Kidlat, a Filipino jeepney driver, is fascinated by the idea of the American space programme and by Western society as a whole. When he moves to Paris, disillusionment sets in as his dreams are gradually shattered.

Perfumed Nightmare

1979

Perfumed Nightmare poster
7.2

Kidlat, a Filipino jeepney driver, is fascinated by the idea of the American space programme and by Western society as a whole. When he moves to Paris, disillusionment sets in as his dreams are gradually shattered.

Perfumed Nightmare

1979

Perfumed Nightmare poster
7.2

Kidlat, a Filipino jeepney driver, is fascinated by the idea of the American space programme and by Western society as a whole. When he moves to Paris, disillusionment sets in as his dreams are gradually shattered.

Perfumed Nightmare

1979

Turumba poster
6.2

Kadu, a boy from Pakil, Laguna, experiences the dissolution of tradition as it gives way to capitalism in the form of Madame, a foreigner who initially came to their village as a customer during the Festival of Turumba.

Turumba

1981

Turumba poster
6.2

Kadu, a boy from Pakil, Laguna, experiences the dissolution of tradition as it gives way to capitalism in the form of Madame, a foreigner who initially came to their village as a customer during the Festival of Turumba.

Turumba

1981

Our Film-Grimage to Guimaras poster
NR

Documentary about an oil spill near the Philippines

Our Film-Grimage to Guimaras

2005

Our Film-Grimage to Guimaras poster
NR

Documentary about an oil spill near the Philippines

Our Film-Grimage to Guimaras

2005

BalikBayan #1: Memories of Overdevelopment Redux VI poster
NR

As the ultimate enfant terrible of Philippine cinema, avant-gardist Kidlat Tahimik refuses to settle on anything, whether it’s the telling of a colonial past, or any version of this film, which he’s been making and revising for nearly four decades. BalikBayan, which means “returnee” in Filipino, is partly about the homecoming of the historical figure Enrique of Malacca, a Malay who Tahimik first played and brought to the screen in 1979. As the slave of the 16th-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan he circumnavigated the Earth, before returning home as a free man. Old footage of Enrique, played by the young Tahimik, is mixed with the fictional story of a mysterious old man, played by the present-day Tahimik, and documentary footage of a contemporary artist community in Baguio, in northern Philippines. In this version, Redux VI, Tahimik continues his quest to reconsider the Philippines’ colonial legacy. Shot on 16mm (1979–1980s) and video (1990s–2017).

BalikBayan #1: Memories of Overdevelopment Redux VI

2017

Balikbayan #1: Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III poster
NR

Magellan, the famous navigator, met his untimely death in the Philippines before he could circumnavigate the globe. Ironically, it was his slave and translator Enrique who most likely was the first to achieve the historic feat.

Balikbayan #1: Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III

2015

Kabunyan's Journey to Liwanag poster
NR

Kidlat Tahimik’s son, Kabunyan de Guia, embarks on a journey from his hometown of Baguio to the southern urban city of Davao using an orange minivan and explores other places in the Philippines along the way.

Kabunyan's Journey to Liwanag

2020

Who Invented The Yoyo? Who Invented The Moon Buggy? poster
7.5

Stuck in the German lands of “Yodelburg,” our hero Kidlat dreams of space and muses on humanity’s endless capacity for creativity, whether on the moon or at home in the Philippines. A delightful, self-proclaimed “third-world space spectacle.”

Who Invented The Yoyo? Who Invented The Moon Buggy?

1979

Who Invented The Yoyo? Who Invented The Moon Buggy? poster
7.5

Stuck in the German lands of “Yodelburg,” our hero Kidlat dreams of space and muses on humanity’s endless capacity for creativity, whether on the moon or at home in the Philippines. A delightful, self-proclaimed “third-world space spectacle.”

Who Invented The Yoyo? Who Invented The Moon Buggy?

1979

Why Is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow? poster
6.3

Inspired by a trip to Monument Valley and the Navajo Nation while en route to the Telluride Film Festival, Tahimik and his eldest son Kidlat Gottlieb Kalayaan use the "spaghetti machine" (Tahimik's nickname for his Bolex camera) to make their own "spaghetti western." The decade-long path of the film encompasses the assassination of Benigno Aquino and the subsequent Yellow Revolution that brought Corazon Aquino to power, the decommissioning of the US air base Camp John Hay, and the younger Kidlat's trajectory through school, all shown through a Third World Projector salvaged from a junk pile on Navajo land.

Why Is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow?

1994

Why Is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow? poster
6.3

Inspired by a trip to Monument Valley and the Navajo Nation while en route to the Telluride Film Festival, Tahimik and his eldest son Kidlat Gottlieb Kalayaan use the "spaghetti machine" (Tahimik's nickname for his Bolex camera) to make their own "spaghetti western." The decade-long path of the film encompasses the assassination of Benigno Aquino and the subsequent Yellow Revolution that brought Corazon Aquino to power, the decommissioning of the US air base Camp John Hay, and the younger Kidlat's trajectory through school, all shown through a Third World Projector salvaged from a junk pile on Navajo land.

Why Is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow?

1994

Journey poster
6.0

This is a Filipino omnibus film about three different journeys.

Journey

2019

Journey poster
6.0

This is a Filipino omnibus film about three different journeys.

Journey

2019

Holy Wood poster
NR

The film illustrates the philosophy of “giving back” to nature, and documents the pinugo, the unique system of sustainable land cultivation developed by the Ifugao to take equal account of forest management and rice growing.This diary film also turns into a travelogue when a group of woodcarvers embark on a trip to Japan to the Takedera temple where they transform a 250-year-old tree, which had been struck by a lightning bolt, into a totem pole.

Holy Wood

2003

Holy Wood poster
NR

The film illustrates the philosophy of “giving back” to nature, and documents the pinugo, the unique system of sustainable land cultivation developed by the Ifugao to take equal account of forest management and rice growing.This diary film also turns into a travelogue when a group of woodcarvers embark on a trip to Japan to the Takedera temple where they transform a 250-year-old tree, which had been struck by a lightning bolt, into a totem pole.

Holy Wood

2003

Takedera mon amour: Diary of a Bamboo Connection poster
NR

Documentary about the meaning of bamboo.

Takedera mon amour: Diary of a Bamboo Connection

1991