Lukas Nino, is about a boy without a father and the making of an action film in a small town. The film is a narrative in which ambiguity is taken to magical lengths. Chance events and everyday scenes of ordinary life become possessed by the spirit of myth, and myth takes on the look of the most ordinary scenes and events.

Acknowledgements

Manila in the Claws of Light was restored in 2013 by the World Cinema Foundation and the Film Development Council of the Philippines at Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with LVN, Cinema Artists Philippines and Mike de Leon. Thanks to the ABS-CBN Restoration team – Leo Katigbak, Pia de Leon and Jane C. Tenorio – for Himala and Three Years without God. We also thank Chew Tee Pao and the Asian Film Archive in Singapore, which has Batch ’81 and A Portrait of the Artist as a Filipino in its care.