The first month of the new year is not even over and we have already learned and read about plenty of good news in the local entertainment industry. Others may consider some of these as small victories but whether massive or minuscule, what’s important is each achievement is a milestone.
The first piece of good news we received was that a film from the Philippines has been accepted in the World Drama section of the highly-touted but difficult-to-penetrate Sundance Film Festival. Martika Escobar’s Leonor Will Never Die, only the second film to date that made it to this section at Sundance, is a tale about a retired writer-filmmaker who falls into a coma after being hit on her head by a television, driving her to become the action hero of her unfinished movie script.
The film stars veteran theater actress Sheila Francisco (who gets what is perhaps the biggest breakthrough role of her movie career), Anthony Falcon, Rocky Salumbides and Bong Cabrera.
The festival is ongoing at this time but Escobar, producer Coreen Jimenez and the entire entourage who were supposed to fly to Utah to represent the film and the Philippines, have to remain in the country when Sundance canceled the whole in-person festival and opted for an online edition instead because of the continuing worldwide surge in coronavirus cases.
A million mark
Because streaming is the in thing of the pandemic era, the Del Rosario family-owned Vivamax streaming platform, launched around this time a year ago, has already reached the 2 million subscription mark, and is available in major cities around the globe.
We spoke to Valerie del Rosario who proudly shared with us that in 2021 alone, Vivamax produced 35 original movie titles and a few series for this platform. “We are targeting to produce 52 projects this 2022, and we are confident that we will hit this goal, with the many collaborations we are getting into with filmmakers and content creators.”
For this week alone, Vivamax has started to stream Mac Alejandre’s Silip sa Apoy starring Sid Lucero, Angeli Khang and Cindy Miranda; Brillante Mendoza’s Sisid, featuring Paolo Gumabao, Kylie Versoza and Vince Rillion; Lawrence Fajardo’s Reroute, headlined by John Arcilla,Nathalie Hart, Cindy Miranda and Sid Lucero; and Lulu, a lesbian-themed series directed by Sigrid Andrea Bernardo starring Rita Martinez and Rhen Escaño.
Women power producers
Two promising Filipino film producers will be the country’s representatives to the 22nd Rotterdam Lab, which is part of the 51st International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Carmela Acol of TEN17P and Stella Laguda of KT House Productions were chosen by the Film Development Council of the Philippines, headed by its chairperson Liza Diño who told us, “For two consecutive years, the Philippines has been represented by exceptional emerging female producers at the Rotterdam Lab. What these ladies will get there will be invaluable to jumpstart their film production careers, and they will get to learn more about the vast international networking opportunities where they can create long term connections.”