Joey (Christopher de Leon) is a free-spirited college student at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Baguio City, who has quietly been struggling with the death of his girlfriend. He is a carefree kind of guy who just bums around with his friends, especially his musician friends. He is supposed to finish writing a song for a movie, which is also the theme song for his awakening.
On the other hand, Anna (Hilda Koronel) had to marry young, and now feels imprisoned by the love of her domineering husband (Briccio Santos).
Unmotivated, Joey finds inspiration in Anna, whom he is drawn to when she visits her cousin Cecile (Laurice Guillen) at the University, and befriends immediately. As they become closer, she starts to get a sense of freedom, while he gains a new sense of direction in his life. But reality seeps in when Joey finds out about her husband and son. Now, they are faced with the difficult decision of whether to awake from or remain in this kind of ‘stolen dream.’
Mike de Leon is recognised as one of the foremost personalities of the Filipino ‘New Wave’ of the 1970s/80s, with his friends Lino Brocka and Mario O’Hara. Moments in a Stolen Dream (Kung mangarap ka’t magising, lit. “When You Dream and Wake Up”, 1977), a tribute to Doña Sisang (whose centennial was celebrated in 1978), showcases de Leon’s restrained handling of the relationship between two middle-class young students of the period. The film was mostly shot at the University of the Philippines in Baguio (Cordillera, northern Luzon), and in Sagada. It was one of his most successful films with the audience (also because of the legendary couple of actors, Hilda Koronel and Christopher de Leon, equally popular in some of Lino Brocka’s films).
It was restored by ABS-CBN Archives, with the help of l’Immagine Ritrovata (Bologna), and restored in 2K by Central Digital Lab in Manila. The source used for the restoration was the 35mm print of the film’s director, who gave ABS-CBN the authority to use the print stored at the Asian Film Archive in Singapore. The audio was also digitally restored with the supervision of Mike de Leon.
Max Tessier