The Garden of Earthly Delights
He deals drugs and has joined a street gang - this is how 11-year-old Ginto tries to hold his own in the slums of Manila. This to the dismay of his older sister Asia, who tries to earn enough money through prostitution to escape the grim reality of everyday life. But Ginto doesn't want to wait, he wants to become a gangster. Meanwhile, Dutch tourist Michael has arrived in town to look up his Filipino online girlfriend. But he turns out to have been cheated. Dejected, he moves to a shadowy neighbourhood where people pursue their shadowy desires. There he meets Ginto, with whom he quickly seeks out a sexual relationship.
In 2014, director Morgan Knibbe made a big impression with his partly dramatised documentary Those Who Feel the Fire Burning, about the fate of illegal migrants. In The Gardens of Earthly Delights, his first feature film, he tackles the same themes: the destructive effects of capitalism and how the have-nots are at the mercy of the have's. He does so in mesmerisingly beautiful images.
