Gallery
All Pictures (6)Biography
Khavn De La Cruz, also known as KHAVN, was born on 23 December 1973 in Quezon City, Philippines. The author, composer and filmmaker is considered the most productive director of his country, with a filmography of over 150 feature and short films. With his surrealistic-anarchical, unconventional work, he always seeks to cross borders and in terms of content, his films repeatedly deal with life in the slums of the Philippine capital Manila.
For years Khavn has been represented with his works at international film festivals. In 2007, for example, his adrenaline-infused documentary film "Squatterpunk" about young people in the slums of Manila, premiered in the competition of the International Film Festival in Rotterdam and then ran at numerous other festivals. One year later he presented the anarchic-subversive silent film "The Muzzled Horse Of An Engineer In Search Of Mechanical Saddles" at the Berlinale, to which he played electronic punk music with his band. Also in 2008, "Manila In The Fangs Of Darkness" was screened at the Viennale in Austria. In 2012, he was again represented in the programme of the Rotterdam film festival, this time with "Mondomanila", a Philippine-German co-production that oscillates between reality and fiction and once again is set in Manila's slums.
In 2016, Khavn De La Cruz realised another film in German co-production: "Alipato - The Very Brief Life Of An Ember" is set in the future and follows a group of street children who are planning the big coup and want to rob the central bank of the slummed megacity Mondomanila. As in other of his films, Khavn does not shy away from drastic and brutal visual language. Excerpts from this film, as well as footage from the shooting, were shown in 2019 in Alexander Kluge's essay film "Happy Lamento" that was co-written by Khavn De La Cruz.
Over the years, he has also been a jury member at renowned festivals such as the Berlinale, the Short Film Festival in Clermont-Ferrant, CPH:DOX in Copenhagen and DOK Leipzig. Since 2002, he has been the director of the .MOV International Digital Film Festival, the first film festival for digital film in the Philippines.
In addition to his extensive film career, Khavn also works as a writer and has published poetry books, a non-fiction book on Philippine cinema and a volume of short stories. He has received several awards for his literary works, including the Palanca National Literary Awards, which are considered the Pulitzer Prize of the Philippines. Khavn has also appeared as a composer, singer and pianist, composed rock operas and is the band leader of The Brockas.