Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz on his latest 9-hour movie Magellan, and nearly dying
Earlier this year, Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz had a near-death experience, and not for the first time.
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He was editing his new film, Magellan, when he began vomiting blood. 'I almost died from tuberculosis. I vomited blood four times. It was scary,' he says.
When we met for this interview, the 66-year-old was sitting in a hotel in Doha, Qatar. 'This is the first time that I've got out of the Philippines [since then],' he explains. 'I'm still on medication.'
He seems entirely calm, but then he is no stranger to death.
Right from the start, I knew that there was going to be a lot of rejection of my kind of cinema.
Lav Diaz, Filipino filmmaker
Born in Columbio, Mindanao, Diaz grew up in a world where you would need to walk miles to see a doctor, where everything from crocodiles to the common cold could kill.
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He almost died 'at the age of four, the age of eight, and … in 2004 as well, I almost died of cancer. I still have the scars.'
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