open season

My filmmaker-friend X was in the mountains for fifteen days shooting his fourth film. He sent me an SMS this morning. "I just arrived in Davao. No cellphone signal in our location shoot in Misamis. Did they announce the Urian nominees already?"

While everyone's attention is focused on the Oscars tomorrow, mine included, I almost forgot that it's the time of year when the Philippine Critics' Society (Manunuri) announces the nominees for the Urian. A screener of Limbunan has already been submitted to them. I received word that about 40 films were being considered this year. 

There is a lot of anticipation among filmmakers, film industry people and cineastes on the Urian because it is the only remaining veritable award giving body in the Philippines. But S, another filmmaker-friend of mine, doesn't share this view anymore despite the fact that two of his films have been nominated in the past. 

"How important is an award?" S asked me. "The film industry doesn't give a heck." 

I told him, "Awards may not be important to producers but they are to filmmakers. They are very important to the filmmaker's ego." I guess it will be very important for my ego, though I've learned not to expect anymore. Filmmakers need that moral boost to keep this film industry from going kaput. 

No official word yet on the nominees or when the Manunuri will make their announcement. My only hope is that Tetchie Agbayani, who plays Farida in my film, gets the critical nod that she truly deserves. 

Limbunan - Farida reveals her dark past from Bidadali House on Vimeo.

the art of the protest sign

Buzzfeed has curated 40 of the best Libya protest signs around the globe. The top spot went to a sign featuring Beavis, while Banksy is in second spot. What's your protest sign?

cat nap

@JamesFranco

ah, venezia!

One of the photos that I took in Venice last year ended up in the Why We Travel: Readers' Photos 2010 section of New York Times.

Clothes in a line as a tourist attraction? You must be kidding. Or so I thought. But in a street in Venice, tourists take turn snapping photos of colorful clothes suspended in the air between centuries-old buildings.

1 in 3

A recent survey shows that 29% of Filipinos — or nearly one in three — believe that People Power is the title of a talent show that launched Kris Aquino into stardom. Unique, indeed. And embarrassing. God save the Philippines!

From what I can recall, it was a comedy flick in the 1990s that made Kris a bankable (not necessarily a talented) celebrity. It was Pido Dida 1, followed by parts 2 and 3, opposite the late Rene Requiestas. I remember the shock and horror in German Moreno's face when Kris, promoting her film on GMA Supershow, fell down the stage during a lip synch number. The song kept playing and playing as Kris's bodyguards and the staff of the show scrambled to come to the then presidential daughter's rescue. 

a harvest of sorrows

Here is an excerpt from an essay entitled A Harvest of Sorrows that I am working on. It recounts my experience during the armed conflict after the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front failed to agree on the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain in 2008. 

“IT WAS A GIRL.”

The women are huddling in front of a bamboo post, whispering among themselves when I arrive in the evacuation center sprawled on the lawn of my uncle’s house after a four-drive from the city. It is nine o’clock. The sun is already high in the sky, obscured partly by tall kapok trees.

“Aday. It was a girl.”

They mutter, their heads shaking, stares fixed on the ground. Then they are silent. “Come inside,” I hear a familiar voice. My uncle’s wife waves at me. “We brought several sacks of rice,” I point to my pickup truck.

“I’ll ask somebody to bring them in,” she tells me. I walk inside her house. “What happened?” I ask her.

My uncle’s wife tells me the story. There was a woman who gave birth at the crack of dawn. One of the refugees. The child was premature. Stillborn. Fleeing their village three days on foot was too much for her. That could have induced the early contraction. Aday. It was a girl. 

The refugee woman’s husband does not know, yet. He did not return to the evacuation center last night. He went back to his village to check their house yesterday, together with the other husbands. Harvest is only ten days away. It is here, almost. “I want to have money when our child is born,” he told his wife. The rice field was beginning to turn golden when they heard the droning of military choppers two weeks ago. But the husband said the conflict was far from their village. “It will pass,” he tried to allay his wife’s and mother-in-law’s anxiety. And now his family is in an evacuation center in my father’s village, together with a hundred other families, bringing with them only the barest essentials in their rush to make an escape when bombs started falling from the sky. His daughter is dead. He still does not know the news.

dagmay's best

I learned from Dominique Cimafranca, who was the coordinator of the recently concluded Taboan International Writers Festival, that my essay The Pilgrim has been included in the The Best of Dagmay 2007 to 2009. The book is expected to be out in March. 

Here is an excerpt from the essay:

Like ancient wayfarers following the frankincense trail to a sanctuary in the middle of the desert, pilgrims of all ages, ethnic origins, religions, and sexual persuasions would congregate at the United Center that night. I set off on Halsted Street. I walked three blocks until I reached the corner of Madison Avenue, and took a left turn. I could hear my heart racing. My dream was about to come true. This journey had taken me 24 years to make, traversing different time zones and the expanse of the great Pacific Ocean. It was a voyage of 8,000 miles, and nearly 9,000 days since the first time I saw Madonna in the Borderline video when I was in third grade. In the intervening years I’ve slipped in and out of faith and nonbelief, sailed across the oceans of lucidity and melancholia, even navigated the sexual topography from being top to bottom to versa. But throughout these constant movements, my devotion to Madonna never faltered. And now I would see her in person, my Salve Regina. But was this the end of a journey? What was I expecting out of this experience? An absolution? An achievement? A proof of devotion? Just like a suicide bomber is convinced that detonating a bomb in a busy Baghdad street is an absolute act of devotion? What if there were no houris waiting in Paradise? What if Paradise doesn’t exist at all?

invasion of the critters

One of the worst things that a cat owner dread is mite infestation. I live with nine cats. When one of them started scratching nonstop a few weeks ago, I began to worry. Now, every cat is in a scratching frenzy. The scratching is particularly intense in the ear area. This could only mean one thing: ear mites.

Ear mites are very contagious. They raise an alarm for cat owners. I knew I had to act fast to contain the situation. Thank heaven for the sunshine, I managed to bathe each cat this morning. (They hate blowdrying so I only bathe them when the sun is hot) Basmati here is the most difficult cat when it comes to bathing. She hates it. She looks so peeved in this photo.

After bathing, I swabbed their ears with cotton balls soaked in mineral oil. The ears become sensitive during mite infestation. The moment a drop of oil hit the ear, they started scratching. 

I called the vet to ask if she's got anything topical to kill the mites. "I've got two types here, depending on the severity of the infestation," she told me. "If it's really serious, then I also have an injectable here."

In half hour I was at her clinic and came home with a topical cream and a bottle of multivitamins to improve the condition of my cats' fur. I applied the cream on each cat's ears. I also gave them their vitamins. Both of them have a very strong smell. The living room now smells of sulphur and cod liver oil.