Cinemalaya 2007 Independent Film Festival Finalists
The ten finalists in the full length feature category of the 2007 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival and Competition have been selected. The finalists are:
1. 2,999 by James Arnold B. Ladioray
2, Endo by Jade Castro
3. Gima (The Goat) by Adolfo B. Alix Jr.
4. Gulong by Romualdo “Bona” Fajardo and Anna Liza “Lyn” Fajardo
5. Ligaw Liham by Emilio “Jay” Abello VI
6. Pisay by Auraeus Solito
7. Sinungaling Na Buwan by Eduardo Lejano Jr.
8. Still Life by Katrina Flores
9. Tribu by Jim Libiran
10. Tukso by Dennis Marasigan.
The Cinemalaya Selection Committee composed of Juaniyo Arcellana, Nestor Torre, Manet Dayrit and Robbie Tan chose the ten finalists from a shortlist of 25 semifinalists. Cinemalaya Festival Director Laurice Guillen moderated the deliberations. A total of 240 entries were submitted to the full-length category of the Cinemalaya competition.
The ten finalists will be awarded a grant of Php 500,000 each and will be shown as competition films during the Cinemalaya Festival in July 2007. The best film will be announced on July 29, 2007 and will be awarded an additional grant of Php 200,000 and the Balanghai trophy in awarding ceremonies at the CCP Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo.
The Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival and Competition will be held on July 20-29, 2007 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
2,999
by: JAMES LADIORAY
Finalist, Full Length Films Category
2,999 is a love story revolving around the 3,000 pairs of shoes of Imelda Marcos and a boy who stole one pair, for poetic justice and for love. The massive shoe collection of the former First Lady, which has attained global iconic, if not notorious status, becomes the ironic focal point for closure, healing and redemption.
About the Director
A cum laude graduate of the University of the Philippines, JAMES LADIORAY is currently a Creative Director who has won several creative awards in the advertising industry. 2,999 is his second script. His first full-length screenplay, the black comedy CUT, bagged the Grand Prize in the 2002 Cinemanila International Film Festival Scriptwriting Competition.
ENDO
by: JADE CASTRO
Finalist, Full Length Films Category
Leo’s life is a series of terminable contracts. Unable to finish school and forced to be the family breadwinner, he takes on five month service-oriented jobs, one after another. Will his love affair with the spirited dreamer Tanya finally give him a taste of security and permanence?
About the Director
JADE CASTRO is a writer, director and producer, who has worked for both commercial and independent features and shorts, television, and music video in numerous capacities. His short film Hopya Love Me Too won the Kodak Award in 2000 and participated in the first Cinemanila International Film Festival. He wrote the screenplay for First Day High in 2006 and co-wrote D’Anothers in 2005. As one of the founding members of UFO Pictures, he co-produced the 2005 Cinemalaya entries Sarong Banggi and Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros. He has also written film reviews for, among others, Pelikula Journal and Philippine Daily Inquirer. He graduated from the University of the Philippines with a degree in film.
KADIN
by: ADOLF ALIX JR.
Finalist, Full Length Films Category
In the small Ivatan village of Chavayan in Sabtang Island, Batanes, Peping - a ten-year old boy and his family make a living out of the milk provided by their kadin (goat), Gima. One morning, he wakes up to find out that Gima, is missing. A storm is brewing, so they have to find Gima before it’s too late. Together with her younger sister, Lita, the two goes on a seemingly impossible search for the goat in the landscape of Sabtang Island, Batanes. A series of frustrating episodes mark the day, tension and desperation growing as chances for recovering the goat and with it, their dashed hopes, start to fade. What follows is a wonderful parable about innocence and the infectiousness of goodness. The odyssey teaches the boy about the true meaning of life- where kindness and cruelty can be found in close proximity.
About the Director
ADOLFO B. ALIX, JR. graduated magna cum laude from the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila with a degree in Mass Communications. He was co-writer of the internationally acclaimed Mga Munting Tinig (Small Voices) by Gil M. Portes. His other writing credits include Homecoming, Beautiful Life, Mourning Girls, D’Anothers, Umaaraw, Umuulan and Siquijor: Mystic Island. His first foray as a writer and director, Donsol was a finalist in the 2006 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival where it won Best Actress and Best Cinematography honors. The film was screened in several international film festivals abroad and garnered Special Jury prizes in the Asian Marine Film Festival in Japan and in the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival in the U.S.A. He also handled film and screenwriting classes at Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila and San Beda College-Alabang.
GULONG
by: SOCKIE FERNANDEZ
Finalist, Full Length Films Category
GULONG is about friendship, love and life. The story is told from the point-of-view of Apao, a smart, kindhearted boy whose quest for an old bicycle reveals the stuff he is made of. With him on this adventure are his insan Momoy and his bespren Tom-Tom. The story begins with a question: How are our 3 friends going to spend their summer vacation? Tom-Tom suggests that they go to his uncle’s fishpond, an hour’s bike ride from where they live. Apao and Momoy have a problem – they don’t own a bike! There are no jeeps and it is too far to walk. Momoy finds an old bicycle but the owner, an old woman named Tita Maggie, will only give it to him if he pays her a hundred pesos. He agrees and promises to come back with the money the next day. This starts a series of events which affects Apao, his friends, his family and even his community. In the end, a discarded 40 year old bicycle connects the past to the present and becomes a catalyst for healing old wounds and reviving a love affair that has long been left for dead.
About the Director
SOCKIE FERNANDEZ was an advertising producer for various multinational advertising agencies. She became a regional producer for a multinational company. She heads the production department of a production house and handles the marketing of a post production house. For more than a decade, she has been directing television commercials. In 2004, she directed her first short film Liyab which won best short of Cinemanila and Gawad Urian that year. It was also among the six Filipino films shown at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2005. Gulong, which she is directing and producing, is her first feature.
LIGAW LIHAM
by: JAY ABELLO
Finalist, Full Length Films Category
When one is invisible, one is likely to lose his way. To an individual whom society fails to notice because of a diminishing circumstance, it is easy enough to lose himself in things that would otherwise be unacceptable. Ligaw Liham is this kind of story. Nor, considered the town simpleton, finds an opportunity to sway to the dance of love when he takes over the pen of Karen’s husband and wrote letters not his. This is a story on how deeply people get affected when one of society’s basic services stops working. It takes inspiration from a true incident involving a provincial post office in Negros that simply stopped working at a pre-texting era when people tend to be completely dependent on the mailing system - letters were neither coming nor going, leaving an unaccounted number of corrupted lives.
About the Director
JAY ABELLO believes that “The camera (still and moving) has been my most accessible and reliable tool in capturing moments that would stand the test of time.” His active involvement in the Negros theater scene led him to work as Assistant Director, 2nd Unit Cinematographer, Crowd Director and Writer in films by noted Filipino filmmakers. He has also worked in a variety of TV soap dramas for GMA-7, TV commercials, short films and projects for the stage. He took a Summer Workshop for Cinematography at the Rockport College and a Photography course at the New York Institute of Photography. Ligaw Liham is his first full-length directorial project.
PISAY
by: AURAEUS SOLITO
Finalist, Full Length Films Category
Amidst the chaos of Martial Law in this Third World country in the 1980s, six teenagers in the top high school for the sciences discover themselves as they go through the joys and pains of adolescence. They were the top two hundred students from all over the Philippines who passed the examination for the Philippine Science High School, which was created for the purpose of giving an education highly enriched in the Sciences to exceptionally gifted Filipino children. Selected from the best and brightest from all over the country, they endure college-level courses in biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics from their sophomore year onwards. Those who can make it are hailed as the future science and technology leaders of the New Republic, those who don’t are deemed unfortunate victims of natural selection. They all learn however that they are neither isolated from the real world, nor are they exempted from living real lives. They find the world outside, erupting into the People Power revolution in 1986 against the Marcos dictatorship, being replicated within the school as they struggle to graduate, contend with teachers, classmates, family, school officials, and a new classification to segregate students meeting the high standards of excellence from those who do not.
About the Director
AURAEUS SOLITO’S first feature film The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros won 14 international awards including 3 awards in the Berlinale (The Teddy award, International Jury Prize at the Kinderfest and Special Mention from the Children’s Jury of the Kinderfest). It is also the first Philippine film nominated for Best Foreign film at the Independents’ Spirit Awards in the US. Tuli is his second feature which won Best Picture and Best Director at the CineManila Film Festival and is in the Official Selection of Sundance 07 and the Berlinale, International Forum for New Cinema.
STILL LIFE
by: KATRINA FLORES
Finalist, Full Length Films Category
An intimate and character driven piece, STILL LIFE is the story of James Masino, a gifted Filipino painter who finds out he is afflicted with a paralyzing disease known as Guillain Barre Syndrome. Faced with a future where he can no longer paint, James leaves his life in the city and goes on a self-imposed exile to paint one last time, one final masterpiece. Unable to imagine a life without his art, he plans to kill himself once he finishes this painting. But Fate intervenes and derails this grand scheme when James learns that he must share this exile with Emma, a beautiful and mysterious young girl who at 19 has lived a life much too old for her years. But it is her courageous and unfailing optimism despite what life has dealt her that ultimately inspires James to realize a life beyond his canvass. Her search for meaning propels his journey towards hope and redemption. And what unfolds is an offbeat love story between a 30-year-old man and a 19-year-old girl that begs the question what is truly the purpose of one’s life? The answer they find in each other will turn out to be simpler and far more astonishing than either one might have ever guessed.
About the Director
KATRINA FLORES graduated in 2000 with a degree in Communication Arts from the Ateneo de Manila University. She has been working for the past six years as a writer, script consultant and creative project manager for Star Cinema Productions Inc. In 2003, she took a break from film and tried her hand in television. After a brief stint as a member of the TV Concept Development Group for ABS CBN, she became a Head writer at 22 for the top-rated and award-winning soap opera Kay Tagal Kang Hinintay, also produced by Star Cinema. Her passion for writing is second only to her passion for the stage and in 2005, she checked off her wish list the role of Nurse in the Bard’s Romeo and Juliet staged by the Metropolitan Theatre Guild. Still Life is her directorial debut.
TRIBU
by: JIM LIBIRAN
Finalist, Full Length Films Category
Every night, in the dark nook and alleyways of marginal urban communities in this metropolis, violence erupts sporadically, waylaying and maiming young lives and youthful dreams. What feeds this brutality? How are lives affected by this vicious cycle? This is the darker side of Manila-by-night, where pubescent gangs, or “tribes,” roam the streets looking for quick fixes and cheap thrills. Here, Manila’s working class district of Tondo throbs to the beat of hip hop and freestyle gangsta rap, while panoramic poverty is spray-painted like a multi-colored graffiti of promiscuous sex, crack heads, and alcohol-induced street battles. Thru the eyes of ten-year-old Ebet, we witness the deadly lives of teen age gang members in Tondo and the events that lead to their explosive confrontation.
About the Director
Tondo-native JIM LIBIRAN bagged a Palanca award in 2006 for his screenplay Tribu. He is a writer, poet, journalist, news documentary maker, and TV producer. He spent many years in the print media, working as writer, editor or columnist for various newspapers. He has a decade of experience in television, working for various TV stations – first working as a researcher, then as segment producer in the news and current affairs department. Rising from the ranks, he became a head writer, executive producer, correspondent, and then as manager. As a broadcast journalist, he is part of the team that produced documentaries and reports on Iraq, the Taliban defeat in Afghanistan, the rebellions in Mindanao, EDSA DOS uprising, and recently, State of War. Some of his poetry collections have won literary awards. He is a member of the Filipino poetry group LIRA. Tribu is Libiran’s first full length film. He teams up with Filmless Films to produce this riveting story of the lives of adolescent street gangs in Manila’s working class district of Tondo.
TUKSO
by: DENNIS N. MARASIGAN
Finalist, Full Length Films Category
The mysterious death of a young village lass leads to the investigation of those who knew her and what they may have to gain from her death. Told from the perspectives of the different characters, the film examines how one’s view may lead to varying interpretations of the same incidents.
About the Director
DENNIS N. MARASIGAN has worked extensively in film, television, and theater over the last thirty years. His first full length digital feature film, Sa North Diversion Road, produced by Cinema One Originals, was cited as one of the best films of 2005 and received nominations from the Gawad Urian and Golden Screen Awards, winning Best Screenplay Adaptation from the latter. He was recently appointed Artistic Director of Tanghalang Pilipino and is one of the organizers of the Philippine Independent Filmmakers Multi-Purpose Cooperative.
