Maryo, Magnifico & me

MANILA, Philippines — In December 2002, Ed Instrella invited me to watch the rough edit of a film called Magnifico directed by Maryo J. delos Reyes. It was my first time to visit the Philippines again after five years in Canada and I was excited to watch the film at Road Runner.

After the screening, there were no dry eyes in the small venue. Ed introduced me to direk Maryo. I hugged him and told him that I would give him his first international award and he smiled.

I went back to Canada in January and I was in communication with him via e-mail and overseas calls. I tried researching on film festivals and the late Wouter Barendrecht told me that a prestigious film festival in Easter Europe was making a splash in the festival circuit. I searched it on Yahoo and was able to contact the festival and artistic director, Evaxxx Zaoralova.

I asked for the address and requested direk Maryo to send a VHS to Prague. After three weeks, I received an e-mail from Zaoralova and her exact woxrds were, “Please reserve the international premiere of Magnifico for us. I would like it to be in our international competition section.”

Direk Maryo, producer Violet and daughter Girlie Sevilla and Jiro Manio (in the title role) with his dad flew to Karlovy Vary from Manila. 

Maryo with the author (second from left) at an international film festival with (from left) Jiro Manio, producer Violet Sevilla and daughter Girlie.

We stayed for almost a week and had a wonderful time. Although the film did not win any single award, Magnifico was invited to international film festivals like Montreal and Busan.

In September of the same year, I received another e-mail from then Kinderfest of the Berlin International Film Festival. They requested a screener from me and I sent my DVD copy of the film. A few weeks later, they sent me the official invitation for the film to compete. It was the first Filipino film to compete in this section in Berlin.

We did not attend the festival because direk Maryo was busy shooting a film and I was busy working. It was one Wednesday in February 2004 that I received an e-mail from the festival asking for my phone number. I gave my work number and a few minutes later, the phone rang. Somebody from the festival was asking if direk Maryo could come to Berlin that Saturday because Magnifico was getting an award.

I asked direk Maryo and he said he couldn’t go. Aside from the fact that he had no German visa and it was quite impossible to do it in two days. I was tasked to receive the award which I, of course, accepted.

Little did I know that direk Maryo was able to arrange his schedule and get his visa on a Thursday, and he flew to Berlin on Friday and arrived in Berlin in the morning.

We arrived in Berlin on Saturday morning, received not one but two of the top awards in the festival: Crystal Bear Award which came with $10,000 and the Grand Jury Award. We were told that it was very rare that a single entry would win both the top awards. We only spent two nights in Berlin and left on Monday.

Magnifico took the Philippines back to the map of international cinema. It was screened in so many festivals, won awards and received acclaim from foreign critics.