Biography

Lamberto V. Avellana

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Lamberto Avellana's career in film starter with an offer of then General Carlos P. Romulo to direct a film on the revolutionary hero Macario Sakay for the big screen. Although his wife, Daisy (Hintiveros-Avellana) apparently chided him for not knowing the first thing about movies, Avellana was not dissuaded and Daisy ended up writing the screenplay. "Sakay" jumped-started what came to be Avellana innovative introduction of a point of view replacing the traditional eye level camera angle in film storytelling. With the assistance of William "Pop" Jansen, a man he acknowledges as mentor in his starting years, Avellana learned the nitty gritty of film-making and at the age 23 was dubbed "The Boy Wonder of Philippines Movies. "Sakay" was adjudged best film of 1939, cheered for its technical aspects and especially for realism that uncommon in Philippines cinema. The fly in the ointment was their portrayal of "Sakay" as bandit instead of revolutionary, which belatedly Avellana realized had been based on American propaganda materials of the time, His son Mari Avallana, who was later to follow in his directorial footsteps, tell us that his dad was so disturbed by the mistaken portrayal that he had always planned a remake the wrong but died before this was realized.
- IMDb mini biography by: BGP

A National Artist in the Philippines.
Popularized the Filipino word bakya, a slang term for lowbrow, unsophisticated, or mass-oriented entertainment. Originally referring only to traditional wooden clogs worn by the working class, legendary film director Lamberto Avellana used "bakya crowd" in the late 1950s to mock audiences who preferred formulas over his high-art films. The word bakya evolved into a descriptive adjective for anything considered cheap, provincial, or tacky.

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