FilmInk Presents is excited to announce the launch of The Search for Weng Weng – the Book, plus a special screening of the documentary of the same name followed by a Q&A with author/filmmaker Andrew Leavold on Wednesday 5th April at 7pm at The Ritz Cinema, Randwick.
“A former cult video store manager turned guerrilla filmmaker and B film detective goes looking for Weng Weng, the two-foot-nine James Bond of the Philippines.
With Weng Weng’s real story buried under more than thirty years of faulty memories, urban myths and forgotten pop culture, it seemed a Herculean task. Was he really a black belt, super-spy, stunt king, ladies’ man, living saint, and plaything of the Marcos family? What was his real name, how many films did he make, and was he possibly still alive?
This book is the definitive search for Weng Weng, an even wilder and woollier tale told by the filmmaker himself, as he travels from Imelda Marcos’ birthday party to the poorest slums of Manila, on the trail of one the Philippines’ unlikeliest heroes – and most heartbreaking stories.
It’s part detective story and midget bio, part gonzo travelogue, part Filipino B Film history lesson, and part magical Quest for the Holy Grail – if the Grail is a two foot nine James Bond of the Philippines.
The Search For Weng Weng is 240 pages (approximately) with illustrations, published by Melbourne’s The LedaTape Organisation and available from March 29th 2017″
Event date:
SYDNEY
Date: Wednesday the 5th of April at 7pm
Location; The Ritz Cinema, 45 St Pauls St, Randwick NSW 2031
Buy Tickets: https://ticketing.oz.veezi.com/purchase/25062?siteToken=HX1OWFwZhk2AylR3EREj6A%3D%3D
Facebook Invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/398031020557688/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR/FILMMAKER
Andrew Leavold owned and managed Trash Video, the largest cult video rental store in Australia, from 1995 to 2010. He is also a film-maker, published author, researcher, film festival curator, musician, and above all, unrepentant and voracious fan of the pulpier aspects of genre cinema. His writing has been published globally in mainstream magazines, academic journals and underground cinema fanzines, for the last two decades. This is his first book.
Leavold toured the world with his feature length documentary The Search For Weng Weng (2013). His ten years of research on genre filmmaking in the Philippines formed the basis of Mark Hartley’s documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed! (released internationally in 2010), on which Leavold is also Associate Producer, and he has since been recognized both in the Philippines and abroad as the foremost authority in his area of expertise, teaching Philippine film history at university level in Australia, the United States, and throughout the Philippines. Leavold teamed with Daniel Palisato co-direct The Last Pinoy Action King (2015), both a feature-length documentary on the late Filipino action idol Rudy Fernandez, and a dissection of film royalty, politics, privilege, idolatry, and the Philippines’ pyramid of power.
He is currently shooting two new feature-length documentaries – The Most Beautiful Creatures On The Skin Of The Earth (also with Palisa), the third in his Filipino trilogy, about erotic cinema under Marcos; and PUB, a history of the mythic St Kilda music scene as told through its most outrageous progeny, musician and artist Fred Negro. Both films are due for release in 2018.