Ricky Davao: No small roles, only small actors

Ricky Davao, best supporting actor

It’s true that there are no small parts, only small actors,” said Ricky Davao, best supporting actor winner at the 2017 Cinema One Originals Film Festival for his performance in Giancarlo Abrahan’s “Paki (Please. Care).”

“A friend of mine called me to say that while this is just a ’small role,’ he really wants me to read the script because I might like it,” Davao said of his namesake, entertainment columnist and talent manager Ricky Gallardo.

“Paki,” about a middle-aged couple and how their love has evolved through the years, likewise went home with the best picture trophy and best screenplay honor for Abrahan.

Abrahan also shared the best director honor with Dan Villegas, who megged “Changing Partners.” Abrahan said: “It’s an honor to stand on stage side by side with Dan. We were batchmates in some film workshops. I guess you can say that we’re each other’s lodi (idol).”

Villegas confessed that the awards he had hoped for his film to win were: best editing (for Marya Ignacio), best actress (for Agot Isidro), best actor (for Jojit Lorenzo) and the Audience Choice (which included a P100,000 cash prize).

“We got them all, and more. I consider the other trophies as bonus,” Villegas told the Inquirer shortly after the awards ceremony held on Sunday night at the Dolphy Theater inside the ABS-CBN Compound in Quezon City.

Giancarlo Abrahan (left) and Dan Villegas, best director winners

He added he was grateful to the jury for granting the best ensemble award to the cast members of “Changing Partners,” a May-December love affair of four couples.

“They were also the actors of the stage play version. Their journey for this film was longer than mine,” Villegas said.

The director added that Cinema One, which funds the annual film festival, once suggested that he conduct auditions for other actors. “I told them that I don’t want to do the film if not with the four,” Villegas recalled. “For me, if it worked [for the stage play], why change it?”

Richard Somes’ “Historiographika Errata” bagged the Jury Prize, as well as the best cinematography for Alex Espartero, and best production design for Donald Camon and Julius Somes.

Mae Paner, best supporting actress —Richard A. Reyes

Rae Red and Fatrick Tabada’s “Si Chedeng at Si Apple” won for Mae “Juana Change” Paner the best supporting actress honor.

Other winners were: Carl Chavez’s “Sorry for the Inconvenience,” best short film; Dempster Samarista’s “Bundok Banahaw,” best documentary; and Leeroy New for Shireen Seno’s “Nervous Translation, best sound award.