| Eric De Guia | |
|---|---|
Kidlat Tahimik (right) and his son Kidlat de Guia |
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| Born | October 3, 1942 Baguio City, Philippines |
| Nationality | Filipino |
| Other names | Kidlat Tahimik |
| Occupation | movie director, film maker, writer and actor |
Eric de Guia (born October 3, 1942 in Baguio City, Philippines), better known as Kidlat Tahimik (a Tagalog translation of "silent lightning"), is a film director, writer and actor whose films are commonly associated with the Third Cinema movement through their critiques of neocolonialism.
One of the most prominent names in the Filipino film industry, he has garnered various accolades locally and internationally, including a Plaridel honorarium for Independent Cinema.
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Tahimik attented the University of the Philippines,[1] where he was a member of the Student Council, then known as the University Student Union, from 1962 to 1963. While attending the university he became a member of the Upsilon Sigma Phi fraternity. Kidlat Tahimik studied at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, earned a Master in Business Administration, and worked as a researcher for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris from 1968 to 1972.[2]
Tahimik grew up in Baguio City, Philippines, a summer resort community established in the presence of several U.S. Military bases. This experience was a weighty influence on the themes of his films, most notably the semi-autobiographical Perfumed Nightmare (1977) and Turumba (1981). The latter of these two films provides some insight into the circumstances that brought him to Europe and into the presence of filmmaker Werner Herzog, who along with director Francis Ford Coppola and his American Zoetrope studio, was instrumental in helping to release Perfumed Nightmare.
Kidlat lives in a 4-story home in Benguet, Philippines with his wife Katrin De Guia and their children. In February 2004 a fire was reported to have spread in their home. The family was able to escape safely, but the director's film stock and collection of art and artifacts were destroyed.[3]