Kaleldo wins at the 8th Jeonju Film Festival
Posted on May 7th, 2007 under Entertainment Success
Congratulations to Brillante Mendoza for receiving the NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) award for KALELDO (Summer Heat) at the recently concluded Jeonju Film Festival in South Korea.
The NETPAC award is given to the best Asian film screened in JIFF by the NETPAC Organization committee. The film stars Johnny Delgado, Cherry Pie Pichache, Angel Aquino, Juliano Palermo, Criseldo Volks, Allan Paule.
Five other films from the Philippines are also vying for top honors in two other prestigious film festivals in Tokyo and Los Angeles.
The films Pandanggo, Todo Todo Teros and Nagpapanggap are entries in this year’s VC Filmfest, The 23rd Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. It is the largest and the most comprehensive event of its kind in Southern California and features over 150 film and video productions by both Asian Pacific American and Asian international artists.
Two Filipino films are competing in the fourth Con-Can Movie Festival, an online short film festival in Japan. Khavn dela Cruz’s “Can & Slippers” and Nick Olanka’s “Monday of Sorrow” are up against 18 other short films from around the world in the Fiction 2 category.
Pandanggo and Todo Todo Teros will be screened at the Directors Guild of America theater in Sunset Boulevard. ‘Pandanggo’, written and directed by Ruelo Lozendo, Wilfred Galila and Dennis Empalmado, is a dance-narrative trilogy of stories with parallel themes that converges in one actual event, the Kasilonawan festival in Obando, Bulacan. The film stars Chin-Chin Gutierrez, Raymond Bagatsing and introduces Che ‘Dominique’ Ramos. The dances are choreographed by Myra Beltran, Jun Acampado and Donna Miranda; accompanied with an original soundtrack by Makiling Ensemble. It is part of the latest batch of films from Cinema One Originals 2006 and will be having its international premiere at the said festival.
‘Todo Todo Teros’ by John Torres is an experimental feature that is part collaged from existing diary footage. A sophisticated reflection on boho life in contemporary Manila. It asks some interesting questions, such as whether all Filipino artists are terrorists, whether lovers can be said to terrorize each other, and how exactly Berlin differs from Manila. Full of music, mystery and poignantly unrequited love. The Canadian/Philippine production, ‘Ang Pamana’ by Romeo Candido will also be screened at the festival.
Debbie Formoso’s ‘Nagpapanggap (Pretend), a movie shoot entirely in Quezon City and Taal Batangas, Philippines is set
in the 1960′s, a post-war Philippines was the richest the country had ever been; run by a soon-to-be declared dictator and overrun by a greedy American presence in the government. Against this backdrop, Nagpapanggap portrays one woman’s struggle with not only the deeply restrictive social mores of the day, but the inevitable compromises she must face to salvage her own sense of worth as well as her relationship with her daughter.
Lourdes is a teacher, a mother and a wife. Always placing others first, she is determined to help the women around her. Faced with the possibility of her husband’s infidelity, can she find the strength to help herself? Set against the backdrop of 1960s Philippines, NAGPAPANGGAP portrays a woman’s struggle with social mores and the compromises she must make to salvage her ethics and her own sense of worth.
Abe Pagtama, a multi-talented actor who appeared in several commercials worldwide and international films, plays the husband with Thelma Aranda Sugay, a former TV newscaster and Miss Magnolia Runner-up, as his wife. Also co-starring is a young and talented Kristine Sabella who just signed with Dorothy Day Talent agency in Hollywood CA .
‘Nagpapanggap’ has already won for Direk Debbie the best screenplay award at the Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television’s Film Outside the Frame Festival.
Khavn dela Cruz’s “Can & Slippers” and Nick Olanka’s “Monday of Sorrow” are up against 18 other short films from around the world in the Fiction 2 category.
De la Cruz’s “Can & Slippers” is about a boy from the slums who plays football with an empty can as soccer ball. “Monday” is about the revenge of a woman scorned. Both have won awards in other worldwide festivals.
A total of 80 films in three categories – fiction, animation, documentary – were selected, subtitled and streamed for global viewing. Four — two for fiction, one animation and one documentary — will be chosen for the Global Audience Award through public voting. Winners will receive $1,000 each (according to the festival website, www.con-can.com) and are automatic nominees for the Grand Prix Award, with a cash prize of $10,000.
A five-member international jury and the audience ratings will determine the winner of the Con-can Grand Prix and Tamashii awards. Two short films will receive the Tamashii Award and a cash prize of $2,000 each.