2 filmmakers share motivations for joining Cinemalaya fest

Carla Ocampo

The creators of “Tokwifi” and “Ang Pagkalma sa Unos,” both winners in the ongoing 2020 Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival awards program, said their aim for joining the annual indie fete was for their short films to be seen by as many Filipino audiences as possible.

While Carla Ocampo said she also considered making “Tokwifi” join other film festivals in Asia, she pointed out that “the film’s humor is very specific. Pinoys would get it, but I’m not so sure with other nationalities.”

“Tokwifi,” (tok-wee-fee) which means “star” in the Igorot language, is a short film about a 1950s mestiza star named Laura Blancaflor who is trapped inside a television set that fell from the sky. She dreams up a romantic romp with a Bontok Igorot man named Limmayug, who does not know how to kiss.

It bagged two trophies at the recent Cinemalaya awards show: Best Film and the Netpac Jury Prize.

“Who else would know that the Igorots are discriminated against except for Filipinos? Who from among them know about Donya Sisang (of LVN Pictures)? The images and sound bytes of ‘Tokwifi’ are very Filipino. I’m not sure if it would resonate as much with international audiences,” Carla, an award-winning documentarist, said of her first narrative film.

“Tokwifi”

Donya Sisang, Narcisa de Leon in real life, who was called the “grand old lady of Philippine movies” ran LVN Pictures, one of the biggest film studios in the 1930s.

Joanna Arong said she created “Ang Pagkalma sa Unos” because there’s so much more to what happened when Supertyphoon “Yolanda” ravaged Tacloban, Leyte, in 2013 “that weren’t reported by the media.”

Joanna also said she joined Cinemalaya because “it has the widest reach.”

“Unos” premiered at the 2020 Slamdance Film Festival in Utah, where it won the Grand Jury Prize. It also copped the Special Jury Prize during the awards show on Aug. 12.

“This was shown in Cebu, too. It likewise had an intimate screening in Tacloban to test how the audience there would react. The emotion was so raw. The tragedy happened years ago, but it was like the people there were reliving it. While Manila is too far from where Yolanda hit, it should be able to feel something, too,” said Joanna, who is born and raised in Cebu.

“Ang Pagkalma sa Unos”

“Ang Pagkalma sa Unos” contemplates on the effects a typhoon leaves on a seaside city. “Myths are woven in to try to understand how people cope with the devastation and trauma,” said Joanna. “A girl’s voice divulges bits and pieces of her own memory of her grandmother and mother to tie in the experiences she felt visiting this ravaged port city.”

Joanna said it would have been better to be able to personally discuss the film with the audience in Manila, “but we have no choice. What else can we do, except to roll with the punches?

“Joanna recalled that there weren’t many Filipinos present when “Unos” was first screened in Slamdance, but the audience could relate to it. “A lot of them were touched by the story. They related it to Hurricane Katrina or to the disaster in Rio de Janeiro. I was approached by this woman from the Bahamas who told me that she also wanted to make a film about the disaster that happened there,” Joanna recalled. “To win an award is just a bonus. I was glad that I was able to show the audience a different aspect of what happened in Tacloban, and make them relate to the story. There were a lot of angry reactions as to how the situation there was handled.”

Meanwhile, Carla said she actually had two motivations for wanting “Tokwifi” to participate in the Cinemalaya fest. First was that she had hoped for the film to be screened at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (the original venue of the 16-year-old festival). “Iba ang energy of a Cinemalaya gala,” she said.

Sadly, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the participating films are now being screened on the video-hosting platform Vimeo until Aug. 16.

“The second reason is for more people to see the film,” Carla said of her project that was funded and first screened at the 2019 QCinema International Film Festival. “We feel that the QCinema run wasn’t enough because it was just screened in Quezon City. I felt sad that there won’t be a theatrical component for Cinemalaya. I always say that a good film deserves a cinema run. It’s different if you see it on the big screen, especially because you will get to appreciate the work done by the cinematographer (Lester Valle) even more.”