Annual Top Films Lists

Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2018: #82. Lav Diaz’s The Season of the Devil

Published on January 1, 2018

The Season of the Devil

2016 was a watershed year for Filipino auteur Lav Diaz, who won the Alfred Bauer Award out of Berlin for his eight hour film A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery and then the Golden Lion in Venice for The Woman Who Left. Always with a handful of projects ready to go it seems (the previously announced When the Waves Are Gone seems to have been put on the back burner), Diaz has completed his next feature, The Season of the Devil, which is described as (natch) an anti-musical musical/rock opera. Cast member Shaina Magdayo has also confirmed her collaboration on another upcoming Diaz project called Henrico’s Farm, starring Charo Santos.

Release Date/Prediction: After winning top prizes in Locarno (2014’s From What is Before), Venice, and Berlin, it may be time for Diaz to break into the main competition at Cannes (where he last premiered in Un Certain Regard with the vibrant Norte, the End of History).

Nicholas Bell

Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.