A genuine reference of contemporary art cinema, filipino filmmaker Brillante Mendoza distinguishes himself through challenging and intensely personal aesthetic research and formal approach. A publicist at first, Brillante Mendoza began his filmmaking career at the age of 45. Since then, he has directed film after film, a total of 16 films over the course of a decade. Celebrated by critics, he broaches subjects such as priced homosexuality (Le Masseur, 2005, awarded at the Locarno Internaitonal Film Festival), life in the porn industry (Serbis in 2008) and filiation (John John in 2007). He also took an interest in the issue of the Manilla mafia in Kinatay, which eventually won the Best Director prize at Cannes in 2009. In 2012, he directed Captive, in which Isabelle Huppert works for an NGO and finds herself a hostage in the Philippines. Close to people and their daily lives, often direct in his approach, Brillante Mendoza also knows how to reach the secret magic of things and their sensuality. Though always oblique, his critique of the filipino political system is no less omnipresent.

His latest film Taklub has been awarded at the Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard).