Why Baler’s Best Picture win is laudable

BY ISAH V. RED

Honestly, I am nearly in that state where all hopes for a better local movie industry have been lost.

The Metro Manila Film Festival, in the last decade or so, has been of no help. Just look around us, the multiplexes are more Hollywood than it was so in the ’60s and the ’70s when the local movie industry had given the foreign film distributors reason to scratch their heads in desperation.

Two years ago, I nearly puked at the festival’s choice for best picture and gave me a million reasons to be more apathetic to the industry that only tries to milk the ignorant and less privileged of their hard-earned P140 with movies done in haste and shot in equipment that European and American filmmakers, and even those in neighboring Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia are resting in museums for students to look at.

Last year, the film festival voted Baler as Best Picture. While the movie isn’t the great Filipino film that I’ve always wanted to see at state-of-the-art cinema, it is still the most sensible among the eight entries in this annual festival that is nearly evolving into a festival of comedy and fantasy movies with ’70’s sensibilities and ’50’s technology.

The festival jurors, I must say, did the right thing when it honored the movie with not one but two Best Picture awards, the other one being the Gatpuno Antonio J. Villegas Award.

I remember the then mayor of Manila, the progenitor of this annual festival of locally produced movies as part of the City of Manila’s celebration of its founding in June every year exhorting movie makers to make excellent movies to buck the competition posed by movies from Hollywood, and I think he succeeded.

The current leadership in the Metro Manila Development Authority has simply forgotten the ideal of Mayor Villegas and is now focused on making more money than encouraging filmmakers to give the audience their best.

Baler’s win this year seems to exonerate the agency’s insensitivity to the artistic side of filmmaking as it goes back to the the original purpose of the festival. Never mind if Baler is not the top-grossing movie, but more importantly, the festival has given the right signal to the movie industry, and that is to make movies that can make us Filipinos proud of our own historical heritage, of our race and culture.

Vic del Rosario, in a brief chat before the festival opened on Christmas Day, said, “It’s expensive to make movies based on history and with the shrinking market this is more painful.”

There is a saying among fitness buffs, “No pain, no gain.”

Baler has gained the honor of being this year’s (not only in the festival) best film. It should gain some more when it is finally sent to festivals overseas.

As I said, it is not the perfect Filipino film. With a budget that is less than $2 million (which is to American filmmaking standards is not even enough to pay for the talent fee of a lead star like Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, George Clooney and others), Del Rosario and his creative team headed by Mark Meily have been able to produce something that is not about Filipinos trying to make fun of others and themselves but about a part of history that is nearly forgotten.

Dayo second most awarded entry

The same can be said for Dayo sa Mundo ng Elementalia, the Philippines’ first all-digital, full-length animated feature.

The movie, despite setbacks at the box office, came out as the second most awarded in the festival’s awards.

The film won Best Visual Effects (Robert Quilao), Best Musical Score (Jessie Lasaten; recorded with the FILharmoniKA conducted by Gerard Salonga), Best Theme Song (“Lipad” by Jessie Lasaten and Temi Abad Jr.; performed by Lea Salonga with the FILharmoniKA conducted by Gerard Salonga), and Best Sound (Whannie Dellosa and Mike Idioma).

“We are so thankful for these technical awards because they have validated our vision for Dayo. These awards pay tribute to all the Filipino artists, specifically our animators who have worked on the film,” said executive producer Lasaten.

Apart from Aguas and Legaspi, the film features the voices of Pokwang (Vicky), Michael V (Narsi), Noel Trinidad (Lolo Meong), Nova Villa (Lola Nita), Johnny Delgado (Carpio), Peque Gallaga (Nano), Laurice Guillen (Diwata/Bruha/Kapre), Gabe Mercado (Jo), Pocholo Gonzales (Toti), and Moymoy Palaboy and Roadfill (Tiyanaks).

Dayo is a hybrid product of paperless 2D and 3D animation, powered by Toon Boom using Macintosh and Linux platforms. 2D animation is used for the characters while 3D animation is used for the backgrounds, especially for the big scenes.

At an estimated production budget of $1.3 million, Dayo is produced in Dolby 7.1 surround sound, possibly the only film that uses that sound design. The team behind Dayo, led by its executive producer and director Robert Quilao, collaborated with Technicolor in Thailand for its post-production.

Graded A by the Cinema Evaluation Board (CEB), Dayo is also being endorsed by the Department of Education and the National Council of Children’s Television (NCCT). It is Rated G or GP (General Patronage) by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB).

Its award-winning theme song and musical score are included in the original movie soundtrack recently released by Sony BMG (Philippines).

Mother and Pacquiao

With Lily Monteverde’s entries to the film festival doing moderately at the tills, it won’t come as a surprise if she would think of coming up with a project for boxing champion Manny Pacquiao.

The boxer has heard that the Regal matriarch has expressed her wish to make a movie starring him, yet he said, “I have not been offered formally,” which only means that Monteverde, who went to Las Vegas to watch the match between Pacquiao and Oscar de la Hoya recently, hasn’t made any move yet to lure the boxer in starring in another movie (his past forays in acting have all been very disastrous, I must say).

With Monteverde’s persistence, she can convince GMA Films president Annette Gozon Abrogar to co-invest with her in a Pacquiao project. And they should be able to finish it before Manny leaves to train for his junior welterweight match with Ricky Hatton of Britain in May.

Budget is the word

You know how most of us get really excited out of getting small tokens of love and affection from people?

This is the case when talent manager and “mother” to all Lolit Solis got budget cards from her friend at PLDT Gary Dujali. She is surely happy for Christmas because she got her share of PLDT Budget Cards already this season.

At the media Christmas party organized by PLDT’s main guy Gary Dujali recently for the entertainment press to also launch MyDSL’s Christmas promo at Annabel’s Restaurant in Quezon City (where Gary gave away laptops aside from the many other prizes), Lolit received a lot of budget cards, much to her delight.

She said she doesn’t really use them up for her own calls but she finds joy in giving them away to her friends and family who have more use for them than she does. “They really use it and it helps a lot. They can save a lot of money kesa cell phones ang gamitin nila di ba? Gustong gusto talaga nila ang budget cards, walang biro. Kaya masaya ako kapag binibigyan ako ni Gary,” she told us with a smile.

And like Lolit, Joey de Leon, her co-host in GMA-7’s Startalk, keeps in touch with his family abroad by using PLDT Budget Cards, too. He says that from now until Jan. 21, Budget Card offers additional 10 minutes for calls to the US, Canada, and Hong Kong for free. Joey says that now, they can enjoy up to 43 minutes of calls for a P100 denomination card, and up to 76 minutes of call for a P200 denomination card.

The budget cards can be used from any PLDT postpaid landlines (DDD not required) or from any Telepwede, PLDT Landline Plus or PLDT payphones. You can now call your loved ones more often with its low rate of P3 for US, Canada and Hong Kong, P5 for China, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, and P8 and P15 to other destinations.

High-profile wedding in San Juan

There was a high-profile wedding that took place last week at the Oasis Garden in the City of San Juan recently.

Mayor JV Ejercito’s bestfriend and right-hand man Warren Villa, son of Mrs. Enriqueta Villa, tied the knot last Dec. 12 with her beautiful bride Regina Manalang, daughter of Mr. Enrico and Mrs. Gloria Manalang.

No less than Bro. Eddie Villanueva of the Jesus is Lord movement officiated the happy occasion that cemented friendships and strengthened family ties.

The principal sponsors were a mixture of politicians, government officials and spiritual leaders. Among those in the list were Pastor Vidal Sibanico Jr., Pastor Arman, Dr. Jesus Esteban Olaño, Rep. Emmanuel Joel Villanueva, Mayor Joseph Victor Ejercito, Attorney Jose Luis Vera, PLDT’s Ernesto Alberto and Roberto Encarnacion, Corazon Lantin, Manolita Aquino, Attorney Armi Jane Borje, Reverend Adoracion Villanueva, Guia Gomez, Rizabelita Sistena-Reyes, Rep. Cinchona Cruz-Gonzales, Pastor Lucilla Turalba, Mrs. Fidela Jabson and Mrs. Virginia Jose.