BONA

Philippines | 1980 | DCP | 86 min. | Tagalog with English subtitles
Director: Lino Brocka
Cast: Nora Aunor, Philip Salvador, Rustica Carpio
Spellbound in a fevered haze of devotion, middle-class student Bona forsakes her family and future to follow Gardo, a vain and womanizing movie actor. Bona’s infatuation for Gardo, a glorified extra who lives in a shack, curdles into servitude as she becomes his obedient maid and surrogate mother, setting the stage for a crescendo of heartbreak and reckoning. Little seen since its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 1981, this marvelous tale of obsessive love is told in a decidedly un-florid, neorealist fashion by one of the Philippines’ most celebrated directors. Bona has been restored in a new 4K DCP.