They may be shorts but the six finalists at the QCinema Film Festival 2021 feature stories that are larger in scope, edgy, and relevant.
There’s a mockumentary inspired from Japanese tokusatsu, an adaptation of a novel inspired by the 1979 Skylab incident, and a coming-of-age story of a gay teenager coming to grips with the reality of online relationships.
The winning QC Shorts entries are Skylab by Chuck Escasa; Ampangabagat Nin Talakba Ha Likol by Maria Estela Paiso; i get so sad sometimes by Trishtan Perez; MIGHTY ROBO V by Miko Livelo and Mihk Vergara; Henry by Kaj Palanca; and City of Flowers by Xeph Suarez.
Each film is entitled to a production grant worth P350,000 with ownership of film rights. These films will premiere in the last quarter of the year during the festival proper.
Most are in pre-production with almost all directors saying that the health protocols and guidelines are challenges that they need to address.
Some are planning to shoot in the province like Perez, who is set to fly to Pagadian to shoot “i get sad sometimes,” while others are still casting for actors.
The QCinema shorts directors share their thoughts on their passion projects.
Miko Livelo & Mihk Vergara
Mighty Robo V tells what happens when a documentary crew covering the Philippine Giant Monster Defense Institute’s Mighty Robo V program learns that the wrong people were hired for the job.
What strikes you most about the story material?
Mighty Robo V allows us to tackle life as we always do: through the lens of comedy. Inspired by Japanese tokusatsu, it’s a mockumentary about institutional inefficiency.
What’s the main challenge in making this short film?
That’s staying true to the spirit of our inspirations. Mighty Robo V, like most of our work, is simultaneously a send up and love letter to the things we love, filtered through a comedic lens.
Maria Estela Paiso
Ampangabagat Nin Talakba Ha Likol tells the story of Maya, who is forced to go home to Zambales and confront a house that terrorizes her as frogs rain outside.
Kindly give us a bit of your personal background.
My mother was born in Zambales. She gave birth to me in Manila. We went back for a while, but I eventually took up my education in the city and am currently dancing around editing machines in Quezon City. I’m a Communication Arts graduate of De La Salle University.
What interests you the most about this story/short?
I love the fact that I went, “Hey, I have a short film with raining frogs, a cockroach, melting gelatin body parts, and some underwater scenes” and QCinema basically said, “Sure, but be very careful”. Wild.
I’m very excited about using mixed media to express the feeling of alienation from somewhere you used to feel at home at; how you’ve left your home and when you came back, the house is mad at you and taking revenge on what you did.
What would you like to achieve/deliver with this short film?
Ampangabagat Nin Talakba Ha Likol is this big, weird, uncomfortable dream. It’s the dream you have that’s on the verge of being a nightmare, but you want to finish the whole thing and defeat the horror.
I want to at least manifest the feeling of something internal bleeding into the physical; in this case the feeling of reconciling with a place you left because you felt that it was too small for you. This short will (hopefully!) make tangible the things I think about, how I think about them, and all of the things in between. In Sambal, of course, because this is some sort of farewell love letter to my childhood and childhood home.
Trishtan Perez
I get so sad sometimes is about a gay teenager eagerly waiting for a mature man to finally reveal his face after developing an anonymous sexual relationship with him online.
Is this your first to film an LGBT material?
I’ve already shot a lot of short films with LGBT themes while I was still in university. Questions about what informs our sexual and romantic behavior have always fascinated me. Most of the time, I only look within myself for answers and then eventually the ones I find inspire the films that I make.
Our stories differ a lot from the typical hetero experience so it’s important for me to get to tell mine for others to not feel alone with their personal journeys.
What is compelling to you about this story/short?
I started writing i get so sad sometimes when I was so much younger and it has developed so much over the years. What really draws me to it is how there’s always something revelatory in every revision that I make. I always discover something new about my younger self every time I come back to rewrite it.
The writing process required me to constantly challenge my memories and how I look at it now. It has become an exercise of honoring all my childish feelings and decisions. I didn’t let go of this story because finally witnessing a character come to life from the truths that I just recently come to terms with has been a very breathtaking experience.
Kaj Palanca
Henry is about a teenager longing for another life when he visits a mansion’s construction site to seek compensation for his older brother’s work injury.
What do you hope to achieve/deliver with this short film?
I don’t think I want to achieve anything big with the film. Henry is very personal to me; I just feel it needs to get done now for me to grow emotionally as a filmmaker. But Henry is also about other people, a public larger than me. It’s about how the developed city excludes and displaces.
I want to be honest and begin from my personal experience; I also want to give a fair, proper portrayal of all these other lives that are not mine.
Since you’re studying Sociology, how does that help you in filmmaking?
Sociology has taught me the value of doing research. I don’t want to dive headfirst into making Henry without first talking to others about what my script may mean for them; I want to allow other narratives to inform and help shape the final form of the film.
Again, this film, though personal, is also about more complex problems, with systemic roots. Sociology as a discipline provides that bridge between private narrative and public experience. When I write I know now to extend myself outwards, to recognize that the stories I tell are not all mine. Sociology has introduced me to a special kind of generosity.
Chuck Escasa
Skylab is about two troubled boys, a satellite falling to the earth, and dark forces threatening the world.
What interests you most about this story?
The script is an adaptation of a short story by Cyan Abad-Jugo which appeared in an anthology of Martial Law writings. It’s about the crash of the Skylab satellite in 1979 which we followed very intently.
I remember watching President Ferdinand E. Marcos on TV reassuring the population. It was the same year that Voltes V was pulled off the air, probably for fear of inspiring widespread rebellion. Skylab or no Skylab, it was a dark time marked by despair and paranoia.
What would you like to achieve/deliver with this short film?
To make a 1970s doomsday film that echoes what’s happening in the country today.
Xeph Suarez
City of Flowers is set in 2013, when the City of Zamboanga is celebrating the Feast of the Nativity of Mary, just before the Zamboanga siege. It tells the story of a pregnant couple trying to survive a drought wreaking havoc on their flower farm and raising enough money for the childbirth.
Suarez’s short films were part of previous QCinema editions. Astri maka si Tambulah made it to the 2017 while Hondo, which he produced, was named Best Short Film in the QCinema 2016 edition.
His latest film, Dancing The Tides, is among the projects featured in the 2021 edition of La Fabrique Cinéma de l’Institut français in Paris, France, a film lab of the Cannes Film Festival.
Dancing The Tides is the feature version of Astri maka si Tambulah. It tells the story of Astri, a Muslim transwoman who is in a relationship with her boyfriend Tambulah. Conflict arises when Astri turns 16 as she is reminded by her father to marry her betrothed, a woman, as dictated by their conservative community.