AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to the epic film. It’s called Magellan, set in the early 1500s, it chronicles the life of the Portuguese colonizer Ferdinand Magellan, the first person to circumnavigate the globe, known for his voyage crossing the Pacific Ocean and landing on the island of Cebu, now the Philippines. The movie shows how Magellan was heralded as a hero to some, but as a murderer by many. This is the trailer.

FERDINAND MAGELLAN: [played by Gael García Bernal] [translated] We will discover a new passage. An occidental route, a route under the end of the world. A new route, our own route!

UNIDENTIFIED: [translated] It is a murderous proposal, Ferdinand!

FATHER PEDRO SÁNCHEZ DE LA REINA: [played by Baptiste Pinteaux] [translated] This territorial conquest is, to this day, the farthest away made by any Christians.

FERDINAND MAGELLAN: [translated] We shall speak to His Majesty. More wealth, more power for him, more Christian conversions.

ARCHBISHOP JUAN RODRÍGUEZ DE FONSECA: [played by Brontis Jodorowsky] Amen.

FERDINAND MAGELLAN: Amen.

UNIDENTIFIED: [translated] It is an expedition to obtain wealth, to obtain power. It is based on greed!

FRANCISCO SÁ DE MIRANDA: [played by Paulo Calatré] [translated] We are killing so many, in the name of the crown and of God.

REYNA JUANA: [played by Hazel Orencio] [translated] They force us to do things that our hearts do not want.

FRANCISCO SÁ DE MIRANDA: [translated] You’re violating the king’s orders.

FATHER PEDRO SÁNCHEZ DE LA REINA: [translated] You have sinned.

FERDINAND MAGELLAN: [translated] I’m fully aware of what I have done.

RAJAH HUMABON: [played by Ronnie Lazaro] [translated] If this pest, Captain Ferdinand, does not leave, he will be killed.

FERDINAND MAGELLAN: [translated] God has brought us before you at long last.

AMY GOODMAN: The trailer for Magellan, featuring the Mexican actor Gael García Bernal as Magellan.

For more, we’re joined by the film’s director, Lav Diaz, award-winning filmmaker and writer from the Philippines. He’s directed numerous films, including Norte, the End of History, which is described by Le Monde as “one of the most beautiful films seen in Cannes.” His other critically acclaimed films include The Woman Who Left, which was released in 2016 and awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The 2004 film Evolution of a Filipino Family is considered his magnum opus. Almost 11 hours in length, it chronicles the struggles of a poor family living under martial law in the Philippines. Lav Diaz joins us now for more.

Thank you so much for joining us.

LAV DIAZ: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: I went over to IFC to sit and watch this magnificent film that you have created, and afterwards, the Q&A with Gael. And, well, I want to just start off by asking why you decided to focus on Magellan, who Ferdinand Magellan is and was.

LAV DIAZ: Well, Magellan is like — he’s been part of our culture. He’s a fixture in everything Filipino. They go to the Philippines. There is, you know, all these novelty songs about him. People talk about him. People were named after him, yeah, streets, disco houses, bakeries, you know, Fernando, Ferdinand. You know, you have Magallanes Street, Magallanes Avenue, Magellan disco house, everything. And what we are now is also as a consequence of him. Eighty percent of the Philippines is Catholic, and it’s because of him. It started with him. Christianity in the Philippines started with him. He did the first Catholic Mass in the country, the first baptismal, the first big conversion. The whole Cebu Island was converted then, so — and then, even the biggest religious icon in the country, the Child Jesus of Santo Niño, he introduced that to us.

AMY GOODMAN: So, he was the first known European contact with the Philippines?

LAV DIAZ: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: But he was also a conquistador.

LAV DIAZ: Yes, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And, you know, as we said, while he’s revered by many, also seen as a brutal murderer.

LAV DIAZ: Yes, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about this man you tried to capture and how he shaped the modern-day Philippines. We’re talking about a 16th-century Portuguese explorer, how he even made it there.

LAV DIAZ: You know, if you talk about Magellan, it’s an epic. So, how do you even start? Where do you start? Because it’s 16th century. The early 16th century, that’s where — when — when the slave trade really started, took off. And it was Portugal, and it became Britain. And this was the time when all of Europe was trying to get out and, you know, conquer or colonize places where they can plunder. It’s all about greed, you know? And it’s with collusion with, you know, the pope, with all the kings and queens of Europe. You know, you talk about the capitalism, it was then. It started then. Imperialism started then. Colonialism, it started. Sixteenth century was like all of Europe was trying to — you know, they’re competing how to get on this idea of, you know, trying to get all the riches from other places, you know. Yeah, there’s navigation, all this explorations, all this alibis of perversion, but it’s all about greed.

AMY GOODMAN: So, the film opens in Malacca, the now present-day Malaysia. Why? Explain the significance of this place and what impact Magellan’s presence had there.

LAV DIAZ: Around 1506, from all these atrocities, atrocities that they did in India, because before they got to Southeast Asia, they went to Africa, of course, the slave trade and all plunders there in Morocco, down to the middle part of Africa. And then they went to India. They attacked Cannanore, Kerala, Cochin, up to Goa, so all these plunders. And then they heard about the great trading that’s going on in Southeast Asia, which is the center of trading was there in Malacca. So they went there, and they found all the things that they need. So, the great Spice Island is around here, is just around the corner. And they heard about the Islands of Gold, which is this archipelago beyond Borneo, and it became the Philippines eventually. So, it was planned. They just needed a road, another road, because it was divided then by — the Treaty of Tordesillas divided — the pope divided the world into, like, Spain is this, Portugal is this. That’s the Treaty of Tordesillas. So, they needed a road so that they can, you know, find the islands of gold. It was planned.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about why you chose Gael García Bernal, the great Mexican actor, to play Magellan?

LAV DIAZ: The decision to get Gael was unanimous. We were in Berlin when we finally decided to do the casting. The Spanish producer and the Portuguese producer were talking about this: Who’s going to be Magellan? Easily, we thought about Gael García Bernal, well, for two things. Gael is not really white. Half of Gael is Indigenous, is, I think, Mayan Aztec. And, of course, there’s the white part of it. And beyond that, Gael is also very knowledgeable about history, and, you know, he knows so much about the parallel histories of the Philippines and Mexico. We were colonized. The Philippines was colonized along with Mexico. And the great galleon trade then was a couple called Manila and Spain. So, we’re so connected. So it was an easy choice. And good thing, when we reached out to him, he said yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about how you prepared for the film. You spent seven years?

LAV DIAZ: Yeah, because it took us also to seven years to find the funding. So, that allowed me also to explore, to investigate, to read, you know, to understand this guy, you know, Ferdinand Magellan, because right from the very beginning, I don’t want to do a heroic figure. I want to understand him as a human being. You know, just —

AMY GOODMAN: You spent a lot of time in Portugal’s archives?

LAV DIAZ: Portugal, all over. I even went to — because I was also in Harvard before, so I was — I went to the libraries everywhere. Any city there’s a big library, I’ll check on the 16th century, check on the Magellan thing, oral history, history, as well. I went to Cebu. I went to the other parts of the country. I went to Malacca, as well, to check the places. I was there in Malacca to understand it, to smell it, you know, how they inhabited. Now it’s an old city. Then it was just waterways, you know, villages. So I just mapped out everything. I reimagined the whole thing.

AMY GOODMAN: What surprised you about what you knew growing up about Magellan in the Philippines and what you learned from this archival research?

LAV DIAZ: Well, if you just go for the vernacular or the conventional or the orthodoxy of the story, you love Magellan. You know, there are songs, novelty songs about him. There are children’s books. You know, he was this magical hero who circumnavigated the world, who was so brave and courageous, you know, going through the — you know, through these uncertainties of explorations. But during the research, you know, I want to understand him. So, wow. You know, I realized so many things about, you know, the discourse on myth-making. You know, this guy was created by a lot of myth-making, mythologizing, even things that we’ve been celebrating as like an anchor to our history, like the case of Lapulapu, the so-called Filipino warrior, Malay warrior, who killed him. Nobody saw him, and he was just mentioned by Pigafetta, and we just embraced and accepted these kinds of narratives. So, you go back to understanding the issue of cultural debacle and myth-making, how we create, you know, heroes that are not real. So, Lapulapu, they declared him our first national hero. And then, during the course of my investigation, I realized, oh, this is a big question. Nobody even saw him. There’s not a good data that supports him as a real human being. This is another myth, you know?

AMY GOODMAN: So, what does that suggest?

LAV DIAZ: Well, you go back to contemporary Philippine perspectives and politics, then you know that there’s always been the greatest debacle of our culture, myth-making, mythologizing — oh, what we call now fake news. So, I want Magellan to be some kind of discourse for us to go back and examine and confront the past, our history. You know, it is that. You know, it’s a kind of Socratic dialogue. We should go near the truth, not just embrace anything that’s been imposed by the dominant eye of the West, the imposed narrative from Europe. We should have our own perspective on it.

AMY GOODMAN: The film opens in Malacca, and —

LAV DIAZ: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — which is modern-day Malaysia. There is a great deal of violence suggested in the film, from Malacca to the Philippines.

LAV DIAZ: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain how you dealt with violence. Why the suggestion of violence? Of course, it was very real. But what you felt you wanted to show?

LAV DIAZ: Well, in the film, I just show the consequence, the consequences of, the aftermath of violence, because we know. You know, it’s been there. You know, you show death, then you know why it happened. You know, you don’t have to show spectacle. I don’t want to glorify violence in my cinema. I just want you to understand it. This is the consequence of violence. This is the consequence of plunder. This is the consequence of greed. This is the consequence of colonialism — fractures for some cultures. You destroy Indigenous cultures, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you set up this next clip we have, where Magellan is confessing? He’s giving a confession. Talk about who the priest is and what’s happening in the scene.

LAV DIAZ: It was written actually by Pigafetta, that scene, during — there was this ongoing mutiny right from the very beginning, when they got the Canary Islands up to in the course to — they routed to the northern part of Africa, and then they went to a little part of India, and they went straight to Brazil and then Argentina. There’s been a lot of internecine in the so-called battles within. They were divided. And at some point, Magellan, you know, being the Machiavellian and the so-called leader of the group, he wanted to know who are the mutineers, the names. So, during the confession, he, under guise of confessing his sins, he asks, “Father” — that’s Father de la Reina, a French. He said, “Give me the names of the mutineers, man. You want to save lives. You’re a priest. Give me the names, so that we can save this expedition. We can save lives.”

FERDINAND MAGELLAN: [played by Gael García Bernal] [translated] Tell me the names of all those responsible for the mutiny. I know you are close to Juan de Cartagena and Gaspar de Quesada. Tell me, what are their plans?

FATHER PEDRO SÁNCHEZ DE LA REINA: [played by Baptiste Pinteaux] [translated] You should know better, Captain-General. Confession is a sacred act.

FERDINAND MAGELLAN: [translated] Help me. Help me save this expedition. Help me save lives.

FATHER PEDRO SÁNCHEZ DE LA REINA: [translated] You are profaning the confession.

FERDINAND MAGELLAN: [translated] Tell me the names of all the traitors.

AMY GOODMAN: “Tell me,” he says. And they’re speaking French and Spanish.

LAV DIAZ: Yeah, yeah. It is — he needed that. You know, for him, he wanted to get to the bottom of it, why this mutiny, who are involved.

AMY GOODMAN: And what happens to this priest?

LAV DIAZ: He was marooned after that. He was marooned. There was a small island in Patagonia. He was marooned along with Juan Cartagena, the co-captain, who was the son of Bishop Juan Rodríguez Fonseca, the most powerful man then in Spain.

AMY GOODMAN: And “marooned,” you mean they were left there.

LAV DIAZ: Yeah, they were left there, yeah. They died, of course, yeah, Father de la Reina and Juan Cartagena.

AMY GOODMAN: And why did he put off Juan Cartagena?

LAV DIAZ: He is the co-captain, and he was the son of Bishop Fonseca. Archbishop Fonseca was the most powerful man in Spain. So, Magellan realized that the mutiny is just not just a mutiny. They wanted to kill him, and Juan Cartagena will take over the expedition. It was planned then, yeah, right from the very beginning.

AMY GOODMAN: And tell us who Enrique of Malacca was, Magellan’s slave.

LAV DIAZ: Magellan met him in 1506 as a very young man. And then, when he went back again in 1509 there, he bought him. He was 14. And he brought him to Portugal around 1511. He knew that this young slave can speak a lot of, you know, languages, because he was — right from birth, he was a slave. He was a slave under Chinese traders, Indian traders. He can speak a lot of languages, beyond the Malay language. So, Magellan’s plan was to really use him in his expeditions going back.

AMY GOODMAN: And you bring us the voices of Indigenous people. Talk about Magellan’s attitude toward Indigenous people.

LAV DIAZ: Well, he’s an ambitious guy. He’s a real human being. If there’s a problem with the Indigenous peoples, then, you know — the ethos of the time was just to survive. There was a lot of killings, a lot of killings. You know, when they got to Guam, my god, the massacres there of Indigenous people. When they got to Saipan, the massacres. There’s a lot of that. Even before that, in Morocco, there was a lot of killings. In India, there were a lot of killings, in Cannanore, in Cochin, in Kerala. So, by the time he did this expedition going back to — going to Southeast Asia, he was a veteran. He had been through a lot of massacres and genocidal, you know, activities, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: How was Magellan killed, killed in the Philippines? His crew completes the journey back to Spain, becoming the first in history to circumnavigate the Earth.

LAV DIAZ: Well, according to the chronicles of — to the writings of Pigafetta, he died in the Battle of Mactan in April 27, 1521. He was — supposedly, he was killed by a Filipino warrior called Lapulapu. But nobody saw Lapulapu. And according to the numbers that he wrote there, if you read his book, his chronicles, there were 60 of them, Europeans, you know, that went to the island, because they didn’t — according to the chief of Cebu, “You see that small island?” he was telling Magellan. “You see the small island?” “Yes. Why?” “The chief of that small island didn’t want to become — they didn’t want conversion.” But there’s a decree by Magellan that anybody who don’t want to be converted must be killed. So, he said, “Tell him, if he doesn’t want to be converted — he didn’t want conversion in two days, he’s gonna die.” So, April 27, they went there for the battle to kill Lapulapu. And according to Pigafetta, 60 of them went to the shore, and they were met by 2,000 armed Malays. So, if you go by the numbers, is that a battle? Two thousand against 60? If you divide it, 33 against one? So it was a massacre. If you read the writing of Pigafetta, it’s more of — it’s hagiography. He really loved Magellan, like his god, his idol. You can see it in his writings. He was, you know, trying to project Magellan as this heroic figure.

AMY GOODMAN: A recent history book by the historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto has argued Magellan was guilty of “imperialism, slavery, incontinent bloodlust and unjust discrimination” against Indigenous peoples. Is that your assessment of him?

LAV DIAZ: Yes, yes. At the same days, although he’s just a human being, he was the most ambitious, as well, yeah. But he was part of that, you know. He was part of that, you know, the imperialist perspective. It was really in Europe even then. The expedition was funded by the House of Fugger of Germany. The money came from Germany. And it was approved by the pope. And it was approved by Queen Elizabeth, who is the mother of this young King Carlos of Spain. He was 19. So, it was a well-planned expedition with a lot of involvement from the moneyed people of Europe, and that’s including the pope.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, you have a scene there.

LAV DIAZ: Yeah, Pope Leo X, Leo X, yeah, Leo X. The House of Fugger funded it. There was already a banking institute, banking institution. It’s a German — a very rich German family. The family name is Fugger. And the house in Spain was Casa de la Contratación, which is headed by Bishop Fonseca.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain the relation between Spain and Portugal.

LAV DIAZ: Well, they were — they were in good terms then.

AMY GOODMAN: Because he was Portuguese.

LAV DIAZ: He was Portuguese, and King Manuel didn’t approve of his — didn’t approve his plan to go to find another route going to the Spice Islands. But the thing is, King Manuel I was just jealous of Magellan. You know, he was a guy who was like jealous of all the people who made him wealthy and rich. Like, Viceroy Almeida, who conquered India first and parts of Africa, when he got big, King Manuel I destroyed him. He was replaced by Albuquerque, Viceroy Albuquerque. When Albuquerque was becoming big, King Manuel I destroyed him.

AMY GOODMAN: Of Portugal.

LAV DIAZ: And now there’s this young rock star, you know, Ferdinand Magellan, coming. He’s becoming popular. He’s a veteran of all these atrocities that he did in Africa, India. And then, when Magellan is coming, he’s like, “Oh, no.” He didn’t approve it. So, Magellan knew that he’s like — he can get funding from anywhere. So he went to Spain.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about how the film has been received in the Philippines?

LAV DIAZ: It was a good reception. It ran for like seven weeks in the country. September, it was shown, after Cannes. It had a good run. It created some discourse, as well. There’s a mix of, you know, perception. Some historians, like, called me a revisionist, but some historians were open, as well, to the idea of discourse and dialogue. You know, going back to history again and reexamining our history again is good. Yeah, the reception was good.

AMY GOODMAN: And coming here to the United States, where, of course, Magellan isn’t as well known as Christopher Columbus, and in Europe, also not as well known, what message do you want to share with the global audience?

LAV DIAZ: Well, you go back to a very Socratic kind of discourse, where, let’s go back. Let’s probably — the seven years of research on Magellan, it became this investigation of a cold case. And yeah, I want to go near the truth on the matter. So, I found so many things that didn’t add up. So, it’s always good to reexamine the past, confront the past, so, you know, you can go near the truth.

AMY GOODMAN: What is your next project?

LAV DIAZ: We’re working on it. We started shooting last December. But, you know, it’s an exploration of another epoch in our history. It’s 17 — the early 18th century, yeah, yeah, during the building of the big churches in the country, big forts by the Spanish when they started really colonizing our country there.

AMY GOODMAN: I don’t think most people know that Magellan named the Pacific Ocean.

LAV DIAZ: Yeah, yeah, because when they reached — when they reached the Pacific Ocean in Chile, it was so peaceful and serene. So, yeah, it’s peaceful water. If you translate it to English, pacífico is serene, peaceful waters, because when they reached the Pacific Ocean, it was so serene, it was so calm. They didn’t know that it was this vast, vast ocean that’s like an abyss, you know.

AMY GOODMAN: Also known as the Sea of Magellan.

LAV DIAZ: Yeah, yeah. But that’s where so many of them died of scurvy. They were just floating. By the third day, there was already this big storm. They didn’t realize, you know, how treacherous the Pacific Ocean was then, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let me ask you, as we begin to wrap up — you are a well-known Filipino director. You don’t shy away from talking about issues in the Philippines. In your other epic film, Evolution of a Filipino Family, almost 11 hours, Variety described the film: “Lav Diaz’s Evolution of a Filipino Family patiently and methodically observes the collapse and hopeful revival of a poor farming clan, meant to symbolize a nation’s history spanning 1971 to 1987.” So, now it’s 2026, 20 years later after the film’s release, and the Philippines is now led again by the Marcos family.

LAV DIAZ: The son of Marcos, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Your thoughts?

LAV DIAZ: Well, we keep repeating history. It’s a curse. It’s not just in the Philippines, you know. It’s always this huge humanities, cultural debacle. The issue is always ignorance, this huge, huge wall of ignorance that we needed to destroy. And the idea of educating people, orienting them about these issues, is very hard. You know, cinema can just do so much, you know. Yeah, you talk about that 11-hour film. It spans the whole martial years and the fractures, the trauma, the effects of martial law. It’s still with us. The effects of the American intervention in our country since 1898 is still with us.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think it’s most important for Americans to understand about what the U.S. did in the Philippines, the occupation of 1898?

LAV DIAZ: Well, plunder, colonization, imperialism, all these things. Now it’s happening again with Venezuela. They want to take Greenland. You know, it may happen any day with Iran. They want to strike Iran. It’s just coming back like this nightmare that wouldn’t get out, you know. America should wake up. It’s supposed to be the most powerful country. It can help change the world. But what is America doing? Come on, Trump. Yeah. Trump is an idiot, yeah. Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Will you make a film about the United States?

LAV DIAZ: I did that film 25 years ago here. We shot it on 35 millimeter, and we shot it in 2000, 2001 here.

AMY GOODMAN: What is it called?

LAV DIAZ: Batang West Side, yeah. It’s still about, you know, again, the fractures of colonization, imperialism, martial law, even the four years of Japanese murderous occupation of the Philippines during the war. So, all these things. It’s just — I created this story around a Filipino diaspora in Jersey City. So it speaks about that.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for —

LAV DIAZ: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: — coming into this studio to talk about your latest film. Lav Diaz is an award-winning director and writer. His most recent film is Magellan. He’s directed so many films, including Norte, the End of History, as well as The Woman Who Left and Evolution of a Filipino Family, almost 11 hours in length. This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.