Video-Palaro: The Video Diaries of Kidlat Tahimik

Produced over 15 years for the JVC-sponsored Tokyo Video Festival, Tahimik’s Video Diaries offers a lovely set of accents to his longer 16mm films. Tropes and themes that recur throughout the director’s career are set in gemlike relief in these brief yet eloquent videos, which include a loving reminiscence of fatherhood on the occasion of Tahimik’s 50th birthday; a tree-planting ritual to celebrate the impending 500th anniversary of Magellan’s voyage; a short documentary on the dying practice of rice terraces, filtered through a homage to Kurosawa; a tribute to the importance of roofs and the strength of bamboo as a building material; and a healing ritual for an oil spill off the island of Guimaras.

Top cast