Jon Lazam

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Jon Lazam is an experimental filmmaker based in Manila.
He also works in the theater which accounts for his deep interest in the interplay between reality and artifice. In 2011, he won the Silvershorts Prize at the 4th .MOV
International Film, Music and Literature Festival for his silent travelogue, Hindi Sa Atin Ang Buwan (The Moon Is Not Ours). It was subsequently screened abroad in key cities such as Bangkok, Yogyakarta and San Francisco. His next creation, another silent short, titled Nang Gabing Maging Singlaki ng Puso Ang Bato Ni Darna (Darna: A Stone Is A Heart You Cannot Swallow), inspired by the eponymous Filipino superheroine, won the Grand Prize, as well as Best Directing, Editing and Cinematography honors at the 3rd Haute Auteur Silent Video Competition. It had its international premiere at the 66th Edinburgh International Film Festival as part of a retrospective commemorating 30 years of Filipino short films. Colonial, his most recent work, is a video art piece for a performance by Alvin Tolentino, a Filipino dancer based in Canada. It had its world premiere in Vancouver in November 2012 and has also been presented in Montreal and Manila. “Jon Lazam may perhaps be one of the most underrated directors working in the fringes of the so-called Philippine independent film industry. He crafts his shorts utilizing whatever resources he can gather. The results, however, are always thrilling in terms of experimentation and innovation.” - Oggs Cruz, film critic

2012 – Nang Gabing Maging Singlaki Ng Puso Ang Bato Ni
Darna (Darna: A Stone Is A Heart You Cannot
Swallow) - 6 mins, 10 sec / colored

In this novel retelling of an old story, Darna wakes up to discover that her magical stone has grown as big as her heart. Alone in a world where silence is her only companion, she learns to come to grips with the finitude of love.
PRODUCERS: Cricket Machine Productions, Creyard Communication and Arts Center
CAST: Karen Jean Rabino, Paul Joseph Rollon
CREW: Jon Lazam
(Director/Co-Producer/
Adapter/Editor), Lenaur
Abbot (Co-Producer), Michael Patrick Limbaga (Cinematographer), Melchevar Sabio (Production Designer/Assistant Director), Ronald Verzo (Assistant Editor)

2012 – Colonial – 30 mins /colored
The Filipino experience as told through images undergoing the endless cycle of collapse and regeneration, much like the country’s history of subservience and resistance.


2013 – Pantomina Para Sa Mga Anyong Ikinubli Ng Alon
(Pantomime For Figures Shrouded By Waves)
19 mins, 45 sec / black and white

When the waves lap against the shore, when the salt of
tears are wasted away in the foaming, how does sorrow surface from the depths? A thesis on grief, the film examines how the gravity of loss turns two people into unwitting ghosts. The radio waves provide a diversion for the mother as her daughter mourns in the solitary comforts of silence. They will soon converge in a strange place, as they both struggle to make sense of the emptiness and muster the heart and courage to move on.