Teresa Barrozo x Jia Zhangke
Out of Jungle
Teresa Barrozo
Teresa Barrozo was born on 7 August 1982, in Quezon City, the largest city in the Philippines. Thanks to music classes in high school, her interest in classical and contemporary music grew. And when her school's liturgical choir was looking for a guitarist, she quickly learned to play the guitar herself. She wanted to pursue higher music studies but failed the entrance exam at the University of the Philippines College of Music. A second attempt was more successful, but she did not complete her education. She did write music for theater and through her contacts at the Philippine Film Institute, she got the chance to debut as a composer for Tirador, a film by Brillante Mendoza, in 2007.
Wanting to show what she was all about, she overwhelmed Mendoza with her score, but the latter sent her back to square one. Nevertheless, she became his frequent collaborator and worked with him on Captive, Thy Womb, Lola and Mindanao, among others. "I learned the most from my failures," Barrozo says of that time. That lesson brought her to the national and even international forefront. She works for all genres of film and intensely seeks the art of listening through performances and installations. With music and sound, she wants to tell a story and find out what new ways are open to listen to the environment, society and each other. This should result in a more cordial community.
© Luk MonsaertJia Zhangke
Chinese director Jia Zhangke calls Chen Kaige's film, Yellow Earth, a life changer. He was studying at Shanxi University at the time and wanted nothing more than to become a film director after the screening. So he went to the Beijing Film Academy in 1993. He shot three short films and after finishing his studies, he started working on his first feature film Xiao Wu about a pickpocket in Fengyang, the city where he was born on 24 May 1970. For him, it was a chance to capture the changes in that city. Later, he mostly used his camera to dissect and depict the transition of the entire Chinese society. The success of his debut allowed him to finance two other films: Platform and Unknown Pleasures. However, like his debut, they were never screened in China.
That changed with the gripping Still Life, which won the Golden Lion in Venice in 2006. The film is set against the backdrop of the construction of the Three Gorges dam. In this social drama, the director also incorporates surrealist elements to further highlight the social downfall. His feature films, short films and documentaries are more than cinema to him. They reflect his social commitment and help shape the memory of his country and people. Watching 24 City, A Touch of Sin, Mountains May Depart, Ash is Purest White or Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue is therefore equivalent to leafing through a colourful and, above all, haunting history book.
