The 12th edition of the Cinemanila International Film Festival will be the first of four festivals that my film Limbunan will be screening in this December.
Since the festival is happening in my home turf, I have decided to devote my time watching all the films that I can handle. At international festivals, I am torn between exploring the city and watching films. For instance, being cooped up inside a dark theater seemed insulting to the grandeur and beauty of Venice. And since Cinemanila will happen in the thick of the holiday rush (traffic, humongous volume of people in the mall, Manila smog) what better way to spend time than retreating to a movie theater.
My picks include:
"Adapted from the novel 'Boundless Rice Field' by Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tu, the film takes place in Vietnam at the height of the Bird Flu but its natural backdrop and the protagonists" situations have a timeless quality. Vo (Dustin Nguyen), daughter Nuong and son Dien live on a boat, drifting from one rice field to the next, rearing ducks and offering handyman jobs. When Suong (Do Thi Hai Yen), a hooker jumps into their boat to evade an angry mob, Nuong and Dien welcome her as a surrogate mother and object of pubescent fantasy, respectively. A volatile relationship develops between Suong and Vo. Eventually, it is revealed that Vo's wife cheated on him and ran away in shame.
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Au Revoir, Taipei (Arvin Chen)
A directorial debut for Chen, it is a romantic comedy that won the NETPAC Prize in this year's Berlinale. Kai, a lovesick young man, wants to leave Taipei in hopes of getting to Paris to be with his girlfriend. Kai spends long nights in a bookstore studying French, where Susie, a girl who works there, begins to take an interest in him. After one extraordinary night, Kai finds the excitement and romance he was longing for are already right there in Taipei.
Memories of A Burning Tree (Sherman Ong)
Smith comes to Dar es Salaam to tie up some loose ends. He meets Link, a tourist guide, who agrees to help him. Along the way they are offered help by Abdul, a grave digger, and Toatoa, a metal scavenger, who themselves are searching for answers to their own journeys. Their search eventually leads them to realise that this is a never-ending journey of dreams and disappointments. With an ensemble cast of non-professional actors and an improvised script, this film is an homage to the road movie genre, where ultimately the road ends when you want it to end.
The Tiger Factory (Woo Ming Jin)
Trying to finance a trip to what she imagines to be a better life in Japan, nineteen-year old Malaysian Ping works too many jobs. She artificially inseminates pigs on a farm; she also washes dishes in a restaurant; and she's apparently involved in a complicated "baby factory" scam that pairs women like her with illegal Burmese workers and then sells the resulting babies for profit. She depends on her ruthlessly exploitative aunt who runs the baby scam, and a Burmese worker who befriends her and attempts to help her escape.
Balangay (Sherad Anthony Sanchez, Robin Färdig)
I saw the rough cut of the film and is quite intrigued about the final look. Shot in the old Davao City International Airport with a cast of lumads. The opening shot is marvelous (if the filmmakers retained it). The behind the scenes story, as Sherad related to me, is a movie in itself.
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