This video comprises an interview with film-maker Kidlat Tahimik (Baguio, Philippines, 1942), a cornerstone of Philippine avant-garde film, in conjunction with the series The Films of Kidlat Tahimik. Fables Against Developmentalism, organised by the Museo Reina Sofía from 10 February to 5 March 2022. In the audiovisual piece, the film-maker shares some of the reflections that run through his work, reflections which are interspersed with fragments of some of his films and a visual record of the show held in the Palacio de Cristal entitled Kidlat Tahimik. Magallanes, Marilyn, Mickey and Fr. Dámaso. 500 Years of Conquistador RockStars.   

Tahimik’s film-making decries the forced growth and development of the capitalist model, in addition to the cultural and social homogenisation this entails, and equally shuns social realism and the factual documentary, opting instead for comedy and rekindling the clown figure in film, from Charles Chaplin to Jacques Tati. Thus, his filmography also denotes the end of Third Cinema, the 1960s and 1970s film movement from third-world countries that championed film-making with scant and “imperfect” resources, as the Cuban director Julio García Espinosa defined it, as a weapon of combat and emancipation from the first-world film and ideology industry.