“We are in our 14th year so ang tagal na rin,” said Ronald Aguelles—Cinema One Originals Channel Head— in his welcome address for the film festival’s media conference held at the ABS-CBN’s ELJ building in Quezon City last October 2.
“We made around 120 titles—original—under Cinema One Originals (or C1 Oroginals). Lahat po ’yon pinili dahil may bago kaming nakita…nagiging platform ’yong Cinema One Original na nakatuklas ng mga bagong directors, writers, filmmakers na bubuo ng iba’t ibang k’wento at naiiba ang mga ginagawa nila.”
Arguelles went on: “So ’yon po ’yong idea sa selection committee kung bakit kami pipili ng magiging finalists… ’yong mga napipili naming—katulad ng siyam na pelikula for this year—meron kaming iba-ibang genre din, so ’yong pinaka-magaganda sa bawat genre at ’yong pinaka-buo at bago ang nakita namin, ’yon ang pinili. Pinili po namin ’yon kasi may nakita kaming kakaiba na boses sa bawat filmmakers at mga part-owners ng mga projects.”
Around 50-plus films ang ipapalabas sa buong duration ng festivals—mula October 12 hanggang October 21—kabilang ang ilang foreigns films, ilang restored films courtesy ng ABC-CBN at FPJ Productions, at mga piling short films.
Formal nang binuksan ang C1 Originals Film Festival last October 9 sa Gateway Cineplex sa Cubao sa pamamagitan ng opening film nitong A Star Is Born na pinagbibidahan nina Lady Gaga at Bradley Cooper.
Here are the nine films that made it to the Cinema One Originals cut this year. The synopses provided herein were excerpted from the C1 Originals press release:
Double Twisting Double Back
By Joseph Abello
Double Twisting Double Back centers on two wildly divergent men, Badger and Wasi, played by Tony Labrusca and Joem Bascon, and the war they wage against each other. Badger just wants to be the best gymnast in the country. Wasi just wants to have as much sex as he can.
Somewhere down the line, their wants get in each other’s way. Double Twisting Double Back is equal parts psychothriller, sex comedy and sports noir and every bit as strange and as funny and as sexy as that mash-up implies.
Director Joseph Abello, Elora Españo, Acey Aguilar, and Joem Bascon
Hospicio
By Bobby Bonifacio
“Everyone has a little bit of crazy in them. But should we get well soon?” Bobby Bonifacio is talking about his second feature Hospicio, an indirect sequel to his 2006 debut Numbalikdiwa.
By “everyone,” he means the residents of the eponymous facility, Hospicio Nueva Vida, which include an also-ran Diva, a loud and proud whore, a kleptomaniac, a wannabe teenage suicide, all seen through the eyes of its most recent resident, a drug addict and EJK survivor, who is forced to take residency in the mysterious and inevitably dangerous place after her younger sister takes a bullet meant for her. “As much as it’s a tale of horror, it is also a sarcastic and humorous parody about institutionalization, hypocrisy and self-righteousness.”
Hospicio cast with director Bobby Bonifacio (seated).
Paglisan
By Carl Papa
Carl Joseph Papa, whose poignant monochromatic animation Manang Biring won Best Picture at the 11th Cinema One Originals, has obsessions he constantly returns to, the passage of time and the tolls it takes on our bodies, the rituals of disease and healing, his own family’s experience with the rot of mortality, and of course, the potentials of animation as a feature-length narrative platform for more adult material. Working with a broader palette this time, Papa returns to all his previous obsessions in Paglisan, inspired partly by his own grandmother’s experience with dementia, and with the added layer of also being a musical of sorts.
In Paglisan, Crisanto is a middle-aged movie star who is suddenly afflicted with early onset Alzheimer’s and finds himself living in seclusion with a wife, Dolores, whose own unhappiness has becoming a sort of affliction, too.
Ian Veneracion (right) and Eula Valdez (left) play Crisanto and Dolores respectively in Paglisan, which also stars Junjun Quintana (center) and Khalil Ramos.
Mamu And A Mother Too
By Rod Singh
“Womanhood has nothing to do with one’s voice, with one’s physical form. Motherhood is not defined by one’s assigned sex at birth, by one’s profession, by one’s capacity to give birth” In many ways, this is what Rod Singh’s debut feature Mamu And A Mother Too is ultimately saying.
Mam is a middle-aged transgender sex worker who is thrusted into life-changing circumstances when her transgender niece, Bona, is orphaned and she found herself becoming a surrogate mother to a young woman who is herself on the cusp of discovering her own sexuality. “Transitioning goes beyond the physical. Transitioning is a journey through the different aspects of life .Transitioning is a privilege.”
Mamu And A Mother Too cast, which includes Arron Villaflor (seated, left) with director Rod Singh (seated, right).
Pang MMK
By John Lapus
John Lapus’s directorial debut is “a dark comedy and a parody of the ABS CBN anthology” which follows a young man who, after finding out his estranged and philandering father—whom he hasn’t seen in twenty years—has suddenly died, must go to his funeral and get it over with.
The story is based on an actual story featured in the show MMK (Maalaala Mo Kaya) twenty years ago, picking up where the episode left off and following the character through his next journey.
Neil Coleta, Direk John Lapus, Nikki Valdez and Zeppi Boromeo.
Never Tear Us Apart
Whammy Alcazaren
Q is an over the hill spy who embarks on one last mission, to find the mysterious Shadow that may or may have taken his son and has infected his wife.
“Turn on the television set. Listen to the radio. Scroll through your feed on your phone. Like a post. Tag a friend. Tweet your opinion. Spread your legs wide and let the world bathe over you at the click of a button. We are who we present ourselves to be to the world as a crafted image.” Alcazaren elaborates on the thematic and philosophical underpinnings of his film.
“It’s both personal and reactionary as it joins the struggle of form in this current state of a social and media-related identity.”
Never Tear Us Apart stars Meryll Soriano (left photo)—here with Direk Whammy Alcazarem—Ricky Davao and Jasmine Curtis-Smith.
Asuang
Rayn Brizuela
Despite what the title may imply, this is not a horror film, but rather a found footage mockumentary about mythical deities trying to survive in a post-internet world on one hand, and on the other, a superhero inversion about the clash between myth and technology.
“The real you, not the virtual you, is what’s important” Brizuela says, articulating the film’s thematic underpinnings, the way it questions notions of identity in a world where you can create and curate fake selves.
Alwyn Uytingo (left) with Direk Rayn Bisuela.
Bagyong Bheverlyn
Charliebebs Gohetia
Taken one way, you can look at Bagyong Bheverlyn as no less than the comeback of Booba herself, Rufa Mae Quinto as Bheverlyn, a recently heartbroken woman, who realizes the reason why the approaching supertyphoon has the same name as hers is that her misery is causing it and the only way to save the country from being wiped out when it makes landfall is for her to find true happiness. Considering its outrageous premise, director Charliebebs Gohetia says that "while a big chunk of Bheverlynn is satirical but it’s also a journey of discovering her self-worth.”
Bagyong Bheverlyn lead Rufa Mae Quinto, director Charliebebs Gohetia, EA de Guzman, and Jude Matthew
A Short History of a Few Bad Things
by Keith Deligero
A grizzled police detective, played by Victor Neri, becomes obsessed with solving a series of murders that nobody seems to want to get to the bottom of, and may be connected to him more than he thinks. Set again, much like his last two films, in and around his native Cebu, and inundated with the city’s temperaments and textures, A Short History Of a Few Bad Things may well be Deligero’s most genre-centric and certainly his most political work, a full-on hardboiled crime piece that he ultimately sums up as “a kind of love letter to our city.”
Direk Keith Deligero (left) and one of his actors Jay Gonzaga.
Cinema One Originals, which is under the festival partnership program of the Film Development Council Of The Philippines (FDCP), runs from October 12-21 in the following cinemas: TriNoma, Glorietta, Gateway, Santolan Town Plaza, Powerplant; in Cinelokal theaters of SM North Edsa, SM Megamall, SM Manila, and SM Sta. Mesa; and in alternative cinemas such as the FDCP Cinematheque Manila, Up Cine Adarna, Cinema ’76, Black Maria Theater, and Cinema Centenario.
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