Evolution of a Filipino Family

One of the longest films ever made, Lav Diaz’s 10-and-a-half-hour epic offers audiences both an endurance challenge and a profoundly unique viewing experience.

Spanning 16 years from 1971 to 1987 and consciously coinciding with the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos, Lav Diaz’s epic family drama focuses on a working-class family struggling during the Marcos regime and its immediate aftermath. As the farming family works and lives off the land, martial law mobilises around them.

Curator’s note
Let’s assess the numbers. Lav Diaz’s astonishing epic drama was filmed over 10 years and is set during a 16-year period overlapping with martial law in the Philippines. However, the most discussed figure when it comes to Evolution of a Filipino Family is the film’s duration. Clocking in at almost 10-and-a-half hours, it’s one of the longest films of all time, and the longest narrative film without chapters or parts.

This extraordinary work premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2004 before screening at festivals around the world. When it does screen – which is rare – it’s often shown in two halves. So heady is the spell that a film of this scale casts on its audience that it will be screening in full at ACMI, uninterrupted as the director intended.

Of course, short breaks are encouraged.

– Reece Goodwin, Senior Programmer (Film & Screen Industry)