Cebu applauds indie fest debut

CEBU CITY—Award-winning independent filmmaker Remton Siega Zuasola confessed he was nervous and unsure about how his fellow Cebuanos would take “Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria,” whose subject is “really close to home.”

Now he’s happy that the film was finally screened in his hometown. “After its release in Manila in 2010, we started getting e-mail requests for screenings here,” Zuasola said. “However, we didn’t know how Cebuanos would take it, since a lot of women here could relate to what happened to Eleuteria.”

Picky audience

“Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria (Eleuteria’s Dream)” is the story of a simple island girl forced to marry a foreigner to help her poor family. The film is set in scenic Olanggo Island during the annual Baliw-Baliw Festival.

“The Cebuano audience is very hard to please … very picky,” Zuasola told Inquirer before the screening at Cinema 3 of SM City Cebu, opening the five-day Cinema One Originals Film Festival here.

“This is the first time that we transported the whole festival to a regional venue and we are thrilled by the enthusiastic response,” said festival director Ronald Arguelles.

“Eleuteria” recently took home two awards from the Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival in Indonesia—the Golden Hanoman for Best Asian Feature Film, and the Geber, given by the Indonesian film community.

Earlier, it won the Special Jury Prize at the 12th Jeonju International Film Festival in South Korea. On the local front, it snagged Best Picture honors at the 34th Gawad Urian and the 2011 Cinemanila International Film Festival (Southeast Asian category).

The lineup of Cebuano-made films included Jerrold Tarog and Ruel Antipuesto’s “Confessional,” Victor Villanueva’s “My Paranormal Romance,” Brandon Relucio and Ivan Zaldarriaga’s “Di Ingon ’Nato” and Gutierrez Mangansakan III’s “Cartas de la Soledad.”

90-percent turnout

“The movies were all warmly received … audience turnout was 90 percent,” said Arguelles, who is also Cinema One channel head.

However, Arguelles stressed “the need of the Visayan crowd to be more exposed to the works of filmmakers from outside Cebu, like the  non-Visayan participants—Mes de Guzman’s ‘Sa Kanto ng Ulap at Lupa’ or Antoinette Jadaone’s ‘Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay.’”

Other non-Visayan movies in the festival were Earl Bontuyan’s “Sa Ilalim ng Tulay,” Michael Angelo Dagnalan’s “Layang Bilanggo,” Richard Somes’ “Ishmael,” Dennis Marasigan’s “Anatomiya ng Korupsyon” and Shireen Centeno’s “Big Boy.”

Outdoor screenings

Cinema One will conduct outdoor screenings in Boracay this summer, said Arguelles. “We want to mount more regional film festivals… we’re hoping to tie up with local groups or schools,” he said.

The network will also host the 35th Gawad Urian, annual awards program of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino, in June, Arguelles added.

He said the 10 finalists in the 2012 Cinema One Originals Film Festival will be announced in April. A P2-million film grant will be given to three of the most “commercial” projects in the batch. The remaining seven finalists will receive P1 million each.

“Hopefully, we’ll produce bigger original Filipino movies,” said Arguelles. “And we’ll always be committed to showcasing talents from various regions.”

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