Three noteworthy Filipino films are competing at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, which runs from September 6 to 15.

Director Lav Diaz’s Kagadanan sa Banwaan ning Mga Engkanto (international title: Death in the Land of the Encantos) is competing for the Artistic Innovation Award, while Brillante Mendoza’s Tirador (Slingshot) and Auraeus Solito’s Pisay (Philippine Science) will also hold their world and international premiere at the same festival, considered the second largest in the world.

Kagadanan was born out of the destruction left behind by super typhoon Reming (international name: Durian), which hit the Bicol region on November 30, 2006. Lav tells PEP (Philippine Entertainment Portal) via email how he came to create this aesthetic piece:

“Two weeks before the typhoon struck, I wrapped the four-month shoot of Heremias Book 2 in the very same places that the typhoon destroyed. A good part of Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino was also shot there three years ago. I’ve become so attached to the place.

“I didn’t realize the magnitude of the devastation till I had gained enough courage to visit the place a week later. The places where we shot scenes were all in ruins; the roads were gone, the houses were either buried or torn to pieces, structures collapsed. It was unbelievable, horrifying. Gloom and sorrow were all over the place. The smell of death was hovering in every corner, even in sleep and in dreams,” he recalls.

Read the full-length article at the Philippine Entertainment Portal.