Bong Cabrera, Christian Bables, Amado Arjay Babon, and Rafa Siguion-Reyna during a break on the set of ‘Makikiraan Po’ (Photo by Bong Cabrera)
When the news circulated last July that Lav Diaz’s new film, Makikiraan Po (Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors), had been accepted in the Out-of-Competition category in this year’s La Biennale di Venezia, he and the Sine Olivia Pilipinas team expectedly got a deluge of congratulatory messages from friends and fans.
But there was also some misinformation that there were still some scenes to be shot.
Diaz could have been that highly respected in Venice so that an unfinished film was accepted. Makikiraan Po is his eighth film in the festival since his first entry in 2007, the nine-hour-long Death In The Land of Encantos.
The Lav team takes a break. Lav Diaz standing, second from left. (Photo by Bong Cabrera)
The 83rd Venice International Film Festival, one of the most prestigious and oldest of its kind, is set in Lido from Sept. 2 to 9, 2026. We learned that Diaz was in the US when the announcement was made, so some clueless “marites” like us thought Diaz only had one-and-a-half months to beat the deadline.
“Makikiraan Po has been finished since March, and we submitted the movie screener to Venice long before the deadline, which was Aug. 12. Probably what some people heard or misread was that we’re going to submit another film, Ang Kawalan ng Kawalan, because Hollywood Reporter wrote about it, in a speculative way,” Diaz clarified to TheDiarist.ph.
Ang Kawalan was a collaboration between Sine Olivia Pilipinas and Tanghalang Pilipino Foundation. Diaz shot all scenes in Sampaloc, his adopted hometown in Quezon, in the summer of 2022, amid the health protocols in the pandemic.
Set in the Commonwealth Period and tackling the tuberculosis outbreak, its cast was from TP’s Actors Company, including Tanghalang Pilipino artistic director Fernando “Nanding” Josef.
Meantime came other projects. Some TP actors became part of Phantosmia, shot the following year, also in Sampaloc. The film shows how Inang Bayan, a character played by Janine Gutierrez, has been continuously abused by Filipinos for personal gains. It has made the rounds of festivals here and abroad.
Then came the strenuous Magellan in 2024, partly shot in Sampaloc, in nearby Mauban town, and several locations in Europe like Seville and Lisbon. In the biting cold winter, Diaz contracted tuberculosis and had to rest and recover for six months in Sampaloc.
Ang Kawalan, true to the title, remains in post-production limbo.
In a recent event of Tanghalang Pilipino at Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Black Box Theater, I bumped into Tata Nanding Josef, who said that Diaz is doing either a sequel or a prequel to Makikiraan Po. Diaz later clarified.
“Walang ikalawang yugto ang Makikiraan Po. Pakisabi nga sa mahal nating Tata Nanding, na huwag siyang nagpapaniwala kay Dexter Dakdak ng Krus na Ligas. At pakisabi sa kanya, malapit na ring mabuo ang Ang Kawalan (There’s no sequel….),” Diaz told TheDiarist.ph.
Then again, given Diaz’s Malay-rooted sense of time, “soon” is relative. Ang Kawalan has been in post-production for nearly five years, and we hoped it will be finished before the 2nd Sine Sampaloc Film Festival this September. We were told that, besides being shot 100 percent in Sampaloc, it also had Sampalukins as extras.
Makikiraan Po was filmed intermittently from mid-December 2025 to March, 2026. It has become Diaz’s third work set in his hometown near the foot of Mount Banahaw, after Ang Kawalan and Phantosmia.
‘Makikiraan Po’ was filmed intermittently from mid-December 2025 to March, 2026. It has become Diaz’s third work set in his hometown
We asked Diaz if he thought of doing Makikiraan Po in the middle of shooting Magellan.
“Malaon na ang kuwentong ito. Sa walang hanggang pananaliksik ko, sa kasaysayan ng ating bayan, at ng daigdig, naglalaro na noon pa sa kamalayan ko ang ang kuwento ng Makikiraan Po (In my unending research on our country’s history and world history, the story of Makikiraan Po has been in my consciousness),” he said.
In his director’s statement, Diaz explained the motivation for how he came up with the idea of this new film. “In 1565, 44 years after Ferdinand Magellan reached the island of Cebu, where he conducted the first mass conversion to Christianity in the archipelago now called the Philippines, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi was able to recapture Cebu and declared the area a colony and property of Spain under the Treaty of Tordesillas.
“There were four failed expeditions between Magellan and Legazpi. By 1571, Legazpi implemented the encomienda system and assigned the initial 500+ encomenderos in many parts of the archipelago. This was the beginning of the feudal set-up in the Philippines that still exists until today.”
He continued, “In the encomienda system, friars, conquistadors, and settlers were assigned and given authority to govern and convert indigenous communities, enforce tributes/taxes, and impose forced or serf labor, and with this set-up in place, the construction of churches, forts, piers, roads, bridges, and mansions went full blast, along with the development of plantations, factories and mining sites.
“The encomenderos and their families eventually became part of the principalia, the rich landowners and hacenderos, who owned plantations and big businesses.
“During this period of interminable constructions, thousands upon thousands of natives, especially males, died because of forced labor. The first Catholic church in the Philippines made of stones, the San Agustin Church, was built for 21 years, from 1586 to 1607. Fifteen to 20 years was the average construction of churches in the late 16th century to the 17th century. Most of the churches then were built with the blood and death of the natives.”
“These houses of God, created with deified grandeur, heavy stones, thick walls, and majestic high ceilings, are among the true proof of the horrors of colonization. This is simply the discourse of Makikiraan Po,” he said.
Christian Bables and Rafa Siguion-Reyna in ‘Makikiraan Po’ (Photo by Hazel Orencio)
Members of the cast are regular Lav team actors Bart Guingona, Ronnie Lazaro, Rafa Siguion-Reyna, Bong Cabrera, Amado Arjay Babon, Daniel Palisa, Kim Perez, and Zeus Bascon. Playing lead characters are Christian Bables and Isabel Sandoval, both making their first film with Diaz.
Then there’s Diaz’s reunion with Yul Servo, a delightful surprise for us. Servo played the troubled young Filipino immigrant who was shot to death in New Jersey in the six-hour-long Batang West Side, released in 2001. It was Diaz’s dream project realized after doing four mainstream movies for Regal Films.
We asked Diaz how he invited the former protégé of the late director Maryo delos Reyes, who made good as an actor before becoming a politician and in recent years, has dabbled in visual arts.
“Noong nag-desisyon na akong gawin ito, isa sa mga kinausap ko si Yul Servo. Nagkape kami sa kapehan at gallery niya sa Escolta. At doon nabanggit ko sa kanya na may gagawin kami. Pinabasa ko muna ang kuwento sa kanya, ang draft ng iskrip. Nagustuhan naman niya (When I decided to do this project, I talked to Yul Servo. We had coffee in his gallery in Escolta. I told him about this project, let him read the story and draft of the script. He liked it),” Diaz said.
We’ve learned the initial working title of Makikiraan Po was Dungwen, the main character played by Bables. Like his previous films, the focus of the story shifts to another angle, and it worked better.
We saw Bables in this year’s Virgin Labfest, his theater debut where he plays a gay mending a broken heart, in John Lapus’ ultra-hilarious Taksyapo. His casting in Makikiraan Po came as another startling news.
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“Naghahanap kami ng mestisong aktor, yung mukhang anak talaga ng isang puti ang anyo, na kahit na nasa gitna ng dilim, alam mong may lahi siyang Europeo. Nagkataong kilala ni Hazel Orencio si Christian. Nagkita kami, kasama ng isa sa mga producer, si Bianca Balbuena, sa isang mamahaling kainan ng mga pasta sa marangyang BGC, at doon, sinabi kong isasama namin siya (We were looking for a mestizo, one whose looks would stand out even in the dark. It so happens that Hazel Orencio knew Christian. We met up, with producer Bianca Balbuena, in an expensive resto serving pasta in the affluent BGC. There we told him he’d be in the cast),” Diaz told The Diarist.ph.
Amado Arjay Babon and Bong Cabrera with Sampalukin co-actors (Photo courtesy of Bong Cabrera)
Orencio is Diaz’s long-time assistant director, line producer and actor. The creative team includes Ceecil Buban, Sanny Joaquin, Allen Alzola, Rommel Jones Lagapa, and some Sampalukins.
In an earlier conversation with The Diarist.ph, Siguion-Reyna told us how it felt working again with Diaz. This was his second film after last year’s Magellan, where he played one of the Spanish soldiers. Here, he plays a character named Higante, who accompanies Dungwen in the search for marble to be used in building a church.
“Very, very good. Sir Lav left us actors to our own devices. It’s very ‘rakenrol.’ We shot in December last year and we were shooting in the jungles of Sampaloc. It was raining all the time. It was fun working again with my castmates in Magellan,” he said.
‘Sir Lav left us actors to our own devices. It’s very “rakenrol,”’ said Rafa Siguion-Reyna
On adjusting to Diaz’s style of writing the script early in the day of the shoot, with actors having a few hours to know their lines, Siguion-Reyna said, “It’s so interesting to work with him because you really have to be a good actor.”
Fellow filmmaker Isabel Sandoval appears in her first film for Lav Diaz. (Photo by Hazel Orencio)
We read or heard somewhere that Diaz had considered Isabel Sandoval as first choice to play Beatriz Barbosa, the wife of Magellan in the original nine-hour long film, Beatriz, Magellan’s Wife, which was later edited to two hours and 44 minutes and retitled Magellan.
“Hindi ko pa kilala si Isabel Sandoval nung nire-research ko, hanggang sa ginagawa ko ang Magellan, kaya ewan ko kung saan mo nabasa yan, baka kay Mang Tinong na naman, Totel, yung madaldal nating kaibigan sa isang kanto ng Pritil. Nakilala ko si Isabel noong premiere ng Magellan sa New York International Film Festival. Sinabi niyang gusto niyang umarte sa pelikula natin. Niyaya namin. Isang mahusay na filmmaker si Isabel. Nakadalawa na rin siya sa Venice,” he said.
Sandoval, whose family hails from Cebu, is the filmmaker behind Lingua Franca, which is about a Filipino transgender caregiver in Brooklyn named Olivia, played by Sandoval herself. It competed in the 2019 Venice Film Festival and was nominated for the Queer Lion award. In 2021, her short film about an inter-racial relationship titled Shangri-La was also shown in Venice.
Rafa Siguion-Reyna (rightmost) reunites with ‘Magellan’ cast: from left, Bong Cabrera and Amado Arjay Babon. Christian Bables plays the lead in ‘Makikiraan Po.’ (Photo courtesy of Bong Cabrera)
Diaz also clarified that Makikiraan Po is not a sequel to Magellan, which is still being shown in cinematheques and universities here and abroad.
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The setting of Makikiraan Po is 1617 in Las Islas Filipinas, about 96 years after Ferdinand Magellan discovered the yet-to-be-named-archipelago in 1521.
Diaz explained: “The Spanish friar, Padre Enciso (played by Bart Guingona), the encomendero of one of the islands in Las Islas Filipinas, rules with unrelenting toughness and insatiable libido, ‘To tame these savages,’ he proclaims.
“He salves his cruelty effectively by invoking the soul’s emancipation through Jesus’ suffering, and the hospitable and embracing indigenous Malay is doomed.
“After the conversion of the majority of the island’s population to Christianity, the biggest project of Padre Enciso is the ongoing building of the church, more than 10 years now in the making, that caused suffering and deaths in its wake. He decides to use marble for the construction of the altar, but bringing such precious limestone would be very dangerous. The transportation of the marble poses a major challenge, as they are a prime target for criminals.
“He assigns his truant and juvenile son, Dungwen (Christian Bables), to supervise the task, as he trusts no one. Dungwen, along with a select group—porters, militia, and mercenaries—would trek more than 50 kilometers of forest, mud, and a steady threat of attacks and ambush by bandits and thieves, but the one they dread and fear the most is the brutal marauder, Baribari (Yul Servo).
“The popular female healer, Babayeng Indimatandog (played by Isabel Sandoval), continues to propagate the Malay animist traditions, defying Padre Enciso’s theocratic absolutism. He must act decisively to stop her.
“The Philippines was forcefully reconstructed by imperial Spain via copious sex (we now call rape), gluttonous appetite (we now call plunder) and the promise of salvation (we now call cataclysm).”
Since he’s back in Sampaloc and it’s been raining almost every day, which fuels his creativity. We asked Diaz if he’s going to shoot a new film.
“Tingnan natin, may pinaplano rin, pero baka kailangan ko munang sumayaw uli para makalikom ng pangsyuting. Nanggagalaiti na ang mga kasama na makapagsimula muli. Kailangang huwag itigil ang himagsikang pangkultural. Nandun ang tamang kalayaan (Remains to be seen, might need to ‘dance’ some more to save up for filming. Our team is raring to shoot again. We shouldn’t stop the cultural upheaval. Therein lies true freedom),” he told The Diarist.ph.
I’m thankful to Diaz for clarifying all our misconceptions, but I only now realize, after intense recollection, that he and I have no common friends named Dexter Dakdak of Krus na Ligas and Mang Tinong of Pritil.
