1-World Festival of Foreign Films
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"Muro-Ami (Reef Hunters)"
1999
Directed by Marilou Diaz-Abaya

Reef Hunters was a breakthrough for Filipino cinema, playing widely on the festival circuit and in some theaters abroad as well as becoming a significant box office hit at home. With production values far superior to most films from the Philippines, it eschews the romantic melodrama so common to the island nation for a more ambitious adventure film that boasts some impressive underwater cinematography. The charismatic Cesar Montano stars as the demanding, increasingly unstable captain of a fishing boat who recruits young village boys to help him with the dangerous job of diving for fish near the coral reefs. "...both a journey into a tortured man's soul and a subtle commentary on the destruction of the Philippine coral reefs" (Tessa Jazmines, Variety). Filipino with English subtitles.  106 minutes.