Lé Baltar

Manila

Journalist and Critic at Freelance

Journalist and film critic 📧 [email protected]

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Articles

There's talent, passion, but platforms lacking

2 weeks ago | rappler.com | Lé Baltar

MANILA, Philippines – Filipino spectators can now add a brand-new film festival to their moviegoing experience, one that puts local animation front and center. This, after the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) formally launched the I Animate: Animation Film Festival late last week.
Director Andrew Ahn on reimagining Ang Lee’s queer classic ‘The Wedding Banquet’

3 weeks ago | rappler.com | Lé Baltar

Filmmaker Andrew Ahn still reels from the standing ovation he got at this year’s Sundance Film Festival for The Wedding Banquet, his nothing-novel yet slick, incredibly heartfelt remake of Ang Lee’s Oscar-nominated 1993 classic. “That’s the first time that’s happened in my career, and I was very overwhelmed,” he says, when he hops on a Zoom call with me. “And my boyfriend saw it for the first time at Sundance at that premiere screening.
Dulaang UP’s 'Mga Anak ng Unos' takes a critical look at the climate crisis

3 weeks ago | rappler.com | Lé Baltar

How can artistic spaces help us negotiate our distance from a global climate threat, and what does it mean to move past the individual when seeking concrete solutions? These vexing questions animate Mga Anak ng Unos, a twin bill offered by Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas for its 47th theater season.
The Lady Gaga-fueled Pette Shabu redefines alternative rap in debut album ‘SPRAK’

1 month ago | rappler.com | Lé Baltar

In his Pitchfork review of Lady Gaga’s seventh album, MAYHEM, music critic Rich Juzwiak writes that the album “lacks the randomness that would qualify as actual mayhem,” noting how dynamic and disciplined Gaga’s sonic manipulation is. This was a critique my mind kept recalling as I put rapper Pette Shabu’s debut album, SPRAK, on loop on a temperate Tuesday afternoon. The organized chaos of Gaga’s latest pop offering, arguably a return to her vaguely Catholic form, parallels that of Pette’s.
At Rotterdam, Khavn resurrects the spirit of Ishmael Bernal the critic

1 month ago | philstarlife.com | Lé Baltar

“It feels like somewhere in the liminal sweet spot between a reunion of ghosts and a lab for generating new cousins,” says Khavn about returning to the 2025 International Film Festival Rotterdam, where he screened his latest film Bomba Bernal.
Catsi Catalan makes directorial debut at CinePanalo film fest with ‘Fleeting’

1 month ago | rappler.com | Lé Baltar

MANILA, Philippines – “Coming from a rather chaotic personal background, I’ve always found it ironic that I ended up working on romance films,” says Catsi Catalan, whose directorial debut Fleeting competed at the 2025 Puregold CinePanalo Film Festival, where it won the PureGold Always Panalo Film award. “Maybe, that’s exactly why I’m drawn to stories about longing, ambition, and complicated emotions,” the director continues.
Baby Ruth Villarama on West PH Sea docu's film fest removal

2 months ago | rappler.com | Lé Baltar

MANILA, Philippines – The teaser for Food Delivery: Fresh from the West Philippine Sea, Baby Ruth Villarama’s latest documentary film, shows a small fishing boat gently riding the ocean waves at sundown, before it trains the camera on some sort of struggle underwater, depicting a fisherman laboriously netting the shoals of fish circling him.
REVIEW: Bong Joon-ho clones familiar thematic fixations in ‘Mickey 17’

2 months ago | philstarlife.com | Lé Baltar

At one point in Mickey 17—director Bong Joon-ho’s madcap, full-throttle follow-up to his Oscar-acclaimed thriller —the titular character played by finds himself at the mercy of his boss, who berates and punishes him by halving his food ration and making him suffer in the cold for letting a soldier perish after an encounter with terrifying giant isopods aptly called “Creepers”—native life forms on early-2050s planet Niflheim—when, by design, it is his job to be expendable, to die many times over.
Robbie Guevara on reinterpreting Rico Blanco’s hits

2 months ago | rappler.com | Lé Baltar

In September 2024, at the curtain call of its adaptation of the musical Once on This Island, 9 Works Theatrical announced that the theater company is gearing up for Liwanag sa Dilim, an original Filipino musical spotlighting the discography of Rico Blanco, particularly during his time as the frontman of local rock band Rivermaya.
‘Everything About My Wife’ director Real Florido on waiting for perfect timing

2 months ago | rappler.com | Lé Baltar

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