Manila in the Claws of Light

Pierre Rissient championed the work of countless filmmakers—as a programmer of the MacMahon Theatre in Paris, as a publicist in partnership with his lifelong friend Bertrand Tavernier, as a scout for Cannes, as a distributor and producer, and always as a lover of cinema with an avid desire to always learn and see more. As Todd McCarthy wrote, it was Pierre who “single-handedly brought the work of the late Filipino director Lino Brocka to the world’s attention.” This searing melodrama, with Bembel Roco and Hilda Koronel as doomed lovers, is one of Brocka’s greatest. “Lino knew all the arteries of this swarming city,” wrote Pierre, “and he penetrated them just as he penetrated the veins of the outcasts in his films. Sometimes a vein would crack open and bleed. And that blood oozed onto the screen.”