You may not know his name, but once you learn it you’ll never forget it: Kidlat Tahimik. It means “silent lightning” in Tagalog, and it has been his nom de plume since he started directing movies in the 1970s. That’s when he caught the attention of Werner Herzog, Susan Sontag, and Francis Ford Coppola with 1977’s award-winning Perfumed Nightmare, about a jitney driver who dreams of being the first Filipino astronaut.

Now Tahimik (born Eric de Guia in 1942) is back on the scene with Balikbayan #1 Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III, a film 30 years in the making, about Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan’s personal slave, Enrique. According to Tahimik’s research, Enrique may have, technically, been the first person to circumnavigate the globe. You’ll have the chance to discover both of these unique films and the infectious personality of the man himself, for free, on April 26 and 28 at the Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, thanks to SFU’s Christopher Pavsek. Pavsek, an associate professor of film, will be moderating Q & As with Tahimik after the screenings.

“Not just beautiful works of art, Kidlat’s films are illustrations of how one might live well today,” Pavsek told the Straight. “He never bows to pressure to follow deadlines or seek out money; he makes films on his own terms and at his own pace, with compassion and tenderness toward the world, toward history, and toward others that should be an example to us all.”

His low-budget aesthetic and intimate, on-the-fly shooting style go hand in hand. Without needing to work according to anyone’s schedule or production constraints, Tahimik (who is also his own leading man) calls all the shots. Speaking to the Straight earlier this year, the filmmaker explained: “Like my first films, I just set out to do it. I didn’t check the weather report; I didn’t check my gas tank. I just went out there, seeing where it took me.”

His films are jovial journeys in which you’ll want to take part, and they prove that you can make socially and politically challenging work into something positive and fun. Says Pavsek: “In an age of rising seas and collapsing economies, his films show us how to be furious at all the injustice in the world but also how to face that injustice with the utmost joy.”

More information here.