THE 2017 Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) is ongoing, and the Philippine flag is definitely flying high. There are seven films from the Philippines invited to the annual A-list festival.Film Development of the Philippines Chairman Liza Diño-Seguerra heads a strong 50-member Philippine delegation.
Raya Martin’s much-awaited suspense drama Smaller and Smaller Circles has finally found the rightful venue for its world premiere, after several attempts in other major festivals. The film, which follows two Catholic priests on the hunt for a brutal serial killer, is based on the widely followed novel of F.H. Batacan.
The movie boasts of a great cast, led by Nonie Buencamino and Sid Lucero. It also stars Bembol Roco, Jess Mendoza, TJ Trinidad and Jun-Jun Quintana. It’s a bit disappointing that the film was not able to send any of its prized actors to grace the festival, apparently because of “budgetary constraints”, notwithstanding that the producers are behind the highly regarded and the ever-so-generous TBA Studios.
Another film invited to have its world premiere is Gerado Calagui’s Those Long-Haired Nights, about three transgender friends and the complexities of their entangled lives and livelihood in one of Manila’s red-light districts. The movie stars Rocky Salumbides, Matt Daclan and Anthony Falcon.
Falcon and Daclan are in Busan with their director and coproducer Manny Marinay. It’s Falcon’s first ever international film-festival outing, and he’s more than elated.
“Actors feel good when they are invited to experience film events. More often than not, we’re offered very little professional fees as actors and, when the film makes it to international festivals and the producers remember to tag us along, it’s big thing for us. I’m grateful for this experience.”
Joseph Israel Laban’s Baconaua is also well represented in Busan. Producer Sara Santiago, actors Jess Mendoza and Elora Españo, and 2017 Cinemalaya best cinematographer winner TM Malones join Laban in all the festival activities in Korea. Earlier this year, Baconaua was awarded the Asian Cinema Fund postproduction grant of the BIFF, and he certainly made good use of this fund.
Sonny Calvento’s Nabubulok is also part of the festival, but we’re not sure if the first-time full-feature filmmaker will attend, since his broadcast-journalist father Tony just passed on a few days ago.
World-renowned filmmaker Oliver Stone leads the jury of the festival’s New Currents section, a competition that’s designed to introduce up-and-coming Asian filmmakers.
Invited to be part of the jury this year is Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz. Other members include Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi, French cinematographer Agnes Godard and Korean director Jang Sun-woo.
For the past few years, the BIFF has been met with formidable challenges, but it continues to face the odds head-on. Its well-loved head programmer Kim Ji-seok met an untimely death in May while attending the Cannes Film Festival, two of its founding members have since been ousted and festival director Kang Soo-youn recently announced that he’s leaving the festival as it comes to a close this year.
Two Philippine projects have also been chosen to be part of the Asian Project Market: Loy Arcenas’s Shade, written by Rody Vera and produced by Alemberg Ang; and Sheron Dayoc’s latest film, Gospel of the Beast, written by Honee Alipio and produced by TBA.
MORE GOOD NEWS
MEANWHILE, Sheron Dayoc won Best Director at the 2017 War On Screen International Film Festival held at Chalons en Champagne in France.
Dayoc won for Women of the Weeping River, the same film that won the Best Film honors at the Urian and the QCinema Film Festival.
Ralston Jover’s Bomba (The Bomb) is in the main competition of the ongoing 33rd Warsaw Film Festival in Poland. The film, produced by Dennis Evangelista and Harlene Bautista, features Allen Dizon and Angellie Sanoy.
Our congratulations to everyone involved.