The story behind Masahista’s Locarno win

The Golden Leopard (Best Picture, video category) win of Masahista at the recently-concluded Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland surprised even (especially) the people behind the production, including Funfare’s Toronto-based "international correspondent" Ferdinand Lapuz who also appears in a cameo role in the movie which topbills newcomer Coco Martin in the title role.

Here’s Ferdinand’s exclusive report on the story behind Masahista’s "surprise" win:

Honest. Riveting, Powerful. Moving. Wonderful. A strong first film.

These are just some of the words uttered by viewers, critics, distributors, film festival programmers and members of the jury about Masahista (The Masseur). This first feature film by Brillante Mendoza was awarded the Golden Leopard award for video competition along with Canada’s Les Etats Nordiques directed by Denis Cote.

We were not really expecting to win any award. We already know that major filmmakers like UK’s Mike Figgis (Coma) and Germany’s Romuald Karmakar (Between the Devil and the Wide Blue Sea) were also in the competition. Upon reading about the other films in the program, I thought the field became tougher. Giusippe Bertolucci, brother of famed director Bernardo Bertolucci, had Raccioneppecui. Thailand’s entry was Wordly Desires directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul who won the Cannes award in 2002 for Blissfully Yours (La Prix Uncertain Regard) and Tropical Malady (Special Jury Prize Cannes 2004). South Korea’s bet was Magician (s), directed by Song Il-Gon who won the Grand Jury Prix for shorts in Cannes 1999 for The Picnic and his first feature film Flower Island gave him the Audience Prize for Best Young Filmmaker in Venice 2001 which was his first feature film.

Masahista, produced by first-time producer Fedelyn Geling of Gee Entertainment Productions and written by Boots Agbayani Pastor with Bing Lao as script supervisor, is the first Asian film to win the Golden Leopard in its 11-year history. It stars Coco Martin, Jaclyn Jose and Alan Paule with the special participation of Katherine Luna, Kristoffer King and Paolo Rivero.

We arrived in Locarno on Aug. 6 but our world premiere was not held until Aug. 9. So what we (director Mendoza, Coco, our young producers Edward and Fedelyn Geling and myself) did was hang out at the Piazza Grande where we displayed the huge posters of the film and distributed our press kits. We even had a chance to meet with distributors and film festival programmers to invite them to our two public screenings.

I must say that we worked very hard because our first screening at the Palavideo on Aug. 9 at 4:30 p.m. was almost full capacity and our second screening the next day at a very early 9 a.m. slot was also almost full. Based on my festival experience, it is unusual to have a good crowd at an early time for the second screening. In fact, Coco and my producers decided to stay in the hotel, so when Brillante and I arrived at the screening, we had to call and had them run to the theater which is a 10-minute walk from the hotel. It was during the second screening when the programmers from the Vienna (Austria) and Thessaloniki (Greece) International Film Festivals saw the film and they invited us to screen it in their festivals this year.

We were supposed to leave Locarno last Saturday morning so we could catch a train and spend a night in Zurich. In fact, we have informed the hotel that we will check out at 11 a.m. and take the three-hour train ride from Locarno to Zurich. At around 8 p.m. last Friday, when I was about to go to sleep, my phone rang and one of the programmers wanted to see me so she could give me something. Coco and Brillante refused to come with me because walking from our hotel to Piazza Grande was really very tiring. But I was able to convince them to join me.

When we reached Piazza Grande, Cristiana Giaccardi ushered us to the programming building. She said that she had to tell us a secret. She just said that we should not leave Locarno on Saturday since Masahista won the Golden Leopard with another film. The very quiet room was filled with our screams of joy. Saturday lunchtime was the first time the winners were gathered for the official pictorial. Until that time, we did not know what was the other film we were sharing the award with.

However, I think the most touching moments happened during dinner on Saturday with the Video Competition Jury. One by one, the jury approached us on our table to congratulate us. They discussed with Brillante the technique he used in the film. When I was speaking with jury Danielle Arbid (who won last year’s Golden Leopard in the video program), Locarno assistant festival director Teresa Cavina approached us and told her that she truly agreed with their choice of winners.

The award ceremony was held at the huge Piazza Grande, an open-air theater with a capacity of 7,000. They screened two major films in the evening which competed for the Audience award. From the festival dinner, we were driven to Piazza Grande and it was only there where we found out that it was the Canadian film we shared the award with.

Unlike other festivals, Locarno does not rely on the starpower of Hollywood celebrities. The only ones we saw were Susan Sarandon and John Malkovich who were given lifetime achievement awards. During the awards program, legendary actress Geraldine Chaplin sat beside us at the hotel lobby during the festival dinner. She was there to introduce Robert Altman’s Nashville, which was the closing film. Direk Dante and myself could not help but ask for a photo op with Spanish actress Marisa Paredes who presented one of the awards.

Golden Leopard winner Rodrigo Garcia sat in front of us during the awards ceremony.

Aside from Vienna and Thessaloniki, I just got an invitation for Masahista to participate at the Flanders International Film Festival in Ghent, Belgium. It will also take part in Frontier in Rome, this September. Ten films from the whole Locarno selections will be screened. All winning films in Locarno had a repeat screening last Sunday for an encore presentation.

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