Cinema One Originals heads south to Cebu City
MANILA, Philippines - The Cinema One Originals Festival is rolling into Cebu City for a five-day screening at SM City Cebu’s Cinema 8, bringing with it compelling titles that include works that spotlight Cebuano film talents. Opening night happens tomorrow, while the series of public screenings will run from Feb. 12 to 16.
“It’s our first time actually to put the festival’s films in a package and bring it outside of Manila. We’re doing it first in Cebu,” said Ronald Arguelles, Cinema One channel head, in a media briefing last Tuesday.
Leading the lineup of featured films are those made in Cebu, namely, Di Ingon ‘Nato (Not Like Us), My Paranormal Romance, Ang Damgo Ni Eleuteria and Confessional.
Confessional, a thriller unfolding on the fringes of Cebu’s famous Sinulog festival, swept the Cinema One Originals awards in 2007, including Best Picture. The film was the directorial debut of Jerrold Tarog, who as of late, has been tapped to helm mainstream films.
Ang Damgo Ni Eleuteria, on the other hand, was the Jury Prize winner of Cinema One Originals in 2010. Directed by Remton Siega Zuasola, Damgo tells the story of an island girl about to be married to a foreigner.
Damgo continues to make the rounds and collect awards in filmfests here and abroad, said Arguelles. It was recently named Best Asian Film at the Jogja-Netpac Asian Festival in Indonesia. Its other accolades for the past two years include the Special Jury Prize at the Jeonju International Film Fest in South Korea; the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Music at the 34th Gawad Urian; and the Best Picture, Southeast Asian Category, at the Cinemanila 2010.
“Damgo is the festival’s opening film. The festival also marks the homecoming of Damgo two years after (its participation in Cinema One Originals). It’s also the first time it will be shown in a commercial theater,” said Arguelles.
Also part of the Cebu leg are the film titles that bagged awards in the 2011 Cinema One Originals such as Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay, Cartas de la Soledad, Sa Kanto ng Ulap at Lupa, Sa Ilalim ng Tulay and Big Boy.
Apart from the directors, actors of the films are set to lend their presence to the festival, and that includes Cuntapay, the Best Actress winner in last year’s Cinema Originals. Her film, according to Arguelles, has been a consistent crowd-pleaser in its every public screening.
Cuntapay has long been a familiar face in the movies by essaying mostly no-name, no-speaking-line horror characters. She hopes that through her new starrer, she can show audiences what she’s capable of doing, acting-wise, and the truth about the acting life as inspired by her own life story. Her first movie role came via one of the early installments of the horror franchise Shake, Rattle & Roll after the production crew became fascinated by the way she ate meat innards in an audition. She got cast by direk Peque Gallaga as the evil witch a.k.a. aswang.
The 76-year-old actress, a daughter of a former lawyer and who in her past, was also employed as a talent coordinator, also said that she knows how to speak in Cebuano because she worked as a teacher in Baybay, Leyte before pursuing showbiz.
Arguelles said that “the (fest) is customized for the Cebuano audience. It’s difficult to mount the festival because of problems in the technical delivery, but we’re doing all we can to give the Cebu audience a high-definition film experience.”
He added, “We also hope to prove that there’s an audience there for what we are doing. This is also to showcase the Cebuano talent because there a lot of good filmmakers from other regions also. They have a different perspective from the Manila filmmakers . I hope people will come and watch the festival because this is really for them.”
Ronald shared the observation that works churned out by regional filmmakers are to watch out for.
“Actually, the selection committee of Cinema One was not conscious whether the entries are regional or not. It was just by accident that we were able to help out filmmakers from Cebu or Davao, etc. Right now, we’re now conscious about helping filmmakers outside Manila.”
Meanwhile, the 2012 edition of the Cinema One Originals will be seeing some changes. “This year, we are still doing 10 movies but three of the most commercial projects, we will fund them with P2M each. The rest will be funded with P1M each.”
Cinema One Originals was founded seven years ago as a platform for independent filmmakers to create full-length movies, starting with a film grant of P500,000. Aside from a bigger budget this year, a revenue-sharing scheme with the filmmakers will be implemented.
(For the screening schedules, check out the festival’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pages/Cinema-One-Originals.)
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