Chai Fonacier
Turns out that there’s another Pinoy in the Spanish film fest in Manila, apart from Raymond Bagatsing (who’s in Salvador Calvo’s “1898: Los Últimos de Filipinas”).
Actress Chai Fonacier, who recently appeared in “Patay na si Hesus” and
“Respeto,” is in the cast of the Argentinean film, Eduardo Williams’ “El Auge del Humano,” which is part of the Pelicula Film Festival, ongoing in Greenbelt 3, Makati.
Fonacier told the Inquirer that she had bagged the project with the assistance of compatriot Bianca Balbuena who helped the Argentinean team shoot a segment in the Philippines two years ago.
“It was challenging for all of us because we had to shoot in uneven terrain: the Chocolate Hills, the jungle,” she recalled. In the end, she simply “trusted the filmmaker’s vision and the narrative we were aiming for.”
She described the film, which debuted at the A-list Locarno fest last year, as “poetic.”
The film—which follows millennials in Argentina, Mozambique and the Philippines
—won two awards at Locarno: best first feature-special mention and the Golden Leopard-Filmmakers of the Present.
“It is one of the more unusual characters I’ve had to play,” she explained. “The film felt like a poem. So it was as if I was a persona drifting from one verse to another.”
Needless to say, she is excited to watch the film for the first time at the Spanish fest, especially because of “the discussions it would spark after.” —BAYANI SAN DIEGO JR.