A good girl falls in love with a playboy actor in a miraculously restored masterpiece of world cinema. Russian premiere as part of the retrospective programme of the Festival of Films Regained.
Bona
- Date:
- 21 Sep 2025,
13:00–14:25
- Age restrictions
- 18+
1980, Lino Brocka
Philippines
85 minutes, Filipino with Russian subtitles
Starring: Nora Aunor, Phillip Salvador, Raquel Montesa, Rustica Carpio
T
18-year-old Bona is passionate about cinema. When her fan letter is answered by a low-budget melodrama actor, she drops out of school, leaves home and settles in her idol’s shack to scrub floors, cook and humbly tolerate his affairs with other women. However, the violent climax of their strange relationship is just around the corner.
Shot form Bona, 1980
Bona is often read as a blunt indictment of male bravado, and it is, but it’s also a disquieting study of cinema’s power to mesmerize.
— David Hudson, The Criterion Current
With its melodramatic intrigue full of bright colours and strong feelings, Bona curses both the structure of patriarchal society and the mind-numbing magic of cinema. Shortly after the premiere, the original film negatives were destroyed in a fire, and it was only in 2023 that a copy of the movie was discovered in the cellars of a Paris film lab.
