Avellana, Lamberto (1915-1991), was a Filipino motion picture director who brought international recognition to cinema in the Philippines. In a career that spanned nearly 40 years, he produced war epics, historical dramas, and documentary movies. As a director , he used the camera in innovative ways to establish a point of view. This method revolutionized the techniques of motion picture narration.
Avellana’s career began in the theater. He founded the Barangay Theatre Guild in 1939 in response to what he believed was a lack of appreciation for the theater in the Philippines. The guild gathered together college actors, musicians, dancers, writers, visual artists, and teachers who shared a passion for the theater. The group’s presentations impressed Carlos Romulo, the president of Philippine Films, who invited Avellana to venture into motion picture direction. Critics generally consider Avellana’s first movie, Sakay (1939), to be his finest. The movie tells the story of Macario Sakay, a general in the Katipunan, the Filipino revolutionary army during the Filipino-American War (1899-1901). When the war ended, Sakay refused to surrender to American forces, went underground, and continued to fight. In this and later movies, Avellana and the actor Leopold Salcedo formed a successful partnership, producing such classics as Death March (1947), Scout Rangers (1947), Kumander Dimas (1968), and Destination Vietnam (1969).
Soon Avellana was attracting international attention. Anak Dalita (1950) was named Best Picture at the Asian Film Festival in Hong Kong. Badjao (1960) was awarded the Best Director of Asia award in Tokyo. El Legado (1960) won the Conde de Foxa award at Bilbao, Spain, and The Survivor (1969) won the award for Best Documentary Film at the Cambodian Film Festival. Avellana’s movie Portrait of the Artist As a Filipino (1966) was made for the first Manila Film Festival, where it was a prizewinner. Avellana received the Philippine National Artist for Theatre and Films award in 1976.
Lamberto Avellana was born in Bontoc, in the Mountain Provinces of the Philippines. He studied at the Ateneo de Manila University, where he was recognized as an outstanding student not only in drama and theater arts but also in public speaking and writing. He graduated with high honors and became a radio news commentator and then the features editor of Graphic Magazine. He was also a part-time lecturer in elocution (the art of public speaking), debate, and logic at the University of Manila.
