‘Sunday Beauty Queen’

(We are running this guide to help moviegoers plan their holiday cinema tour. The 42nd Metro Manila Film Festival runs from Dec. 25 to Jan. 3, 2017.)

Directed by Baby Ruth Villarama; featuring Leo Selomenio, Mylyn Jacobo, Cherie Bretaña, Hazel Perdido, Rudelie Acosta

Documentary follows overseas Filipino workers who join a beauty pageant, as part of the Philippine Independence Day celebrations in Hong Kong. For four years, the docu followed four college graduates (with degrees in AB English, Hotel and Restaurant Management, Computer Science and Information Technology), who now work as domestic helpers abroad.

The first docu to be shown in the MMFF got a “unanimous” grade of A from the Cinema Evaluation Board.

Variety’s Maggie Lee relates: “If audiences are surprised by how gorgeous the ladies suddenly look, it’s because the film shows them in a new light, as individuals, free and having fun for the first time.”

Filmedinether.com’s Matthew Rooke agrees: “Fully subverts the expectations of the beauty pageant, taking it from an event of disdain and exploitation to one of necessity…

helping [women] survive a pretty tough and lonely life.” —BAYANI SAN DIEGO JR.