Western Visayas films compete in Cinemalaya 2022

 

Western Visayas films compete in Cinemalaya 2022

 

The Western Visayas  is the backdrop of three competing full-length films for this year’s Cinemalaya  Independent Film Festival.  

 

After a two-year wait as a result of the series of COVID-19  lockdowns,  Cinemalaya finally returned as   a face-to-face event   with  a full-length feature category for eleven films, including three   films shot in Iloilo, Guimaras, and Silay in Western Visayas :  Batsoy, Kargo and Kaluskos.

 

Batsoy tells the story of the  fantastical adventure of  two young siblings to satiate their much-coveted and delectable craving for batsoy.  It highlights the noble and supreme love of an elder child for his younger brother.

After selling firewood for their basic needs,  Toto (Sean Ethan Sotto)  and Nonoy (Markko Cambas) went to buy batsoy, the food that the younger brother has been craving the most.

Mt. Manaphag, which faces the town of San Dionisio, becomes the silent witness to their journey to satisfy their craving.  Their adventure ultimately brought  viewers to a world of magic, fantasy and reality.

According to the film’s director Ronald Batallones,  it presents a simple, happy, and innocent life of the youth in the 1980’s amidst the rural landscape. It is a journey  aimed to cherish and relive the  mystical and enchanted past of provincial life.

And it indeed rekindled my younger years as a  radio report aired   the death of young actress  Julie Vega on   May 6, 1985 at the age of 16 .

She was   popular for her own soap opera Anna Liza in GMA Network . Her portrayal of the sensitive and frequently oppressed title character drew the sympathy and affections of the Filipino viewing public and further solidified her star status. Its rival soap opera is Flor de Luna that starred Janice de Belen.

The film likewise provides viewers the ultimate sensory experience to savor the famous comfort food of the Ilonggos: the Batsoy which  is a noodle soup made with pork offal, crushed pork cracklings, chicken stock, beef loin and round noodles. 

 

 

 

 

Kargo is a feature film about living and redemption.  Sara (Max Eigenmann) relieves the heavy burden from her past when she finally exacts revenge on the man who murdered her entire family.

When her entire family perished in a motorcycle accident at a rough highway in Maasin, Iloilo, Sara crashed into a deep depression, which was gradually replaced with an overpowering need to avenge them.

Believing that her husband and daughter were murdered, she searches for the man who killed her entire family to find some closure. But at the end of her journey, she untangles something she did not quite expect – a discovery that could profoundly change her entire life.

The film director TM Malones said that the films depicts the reality that  in a single moment, everything could end and be lost forever. And all the people involved, whether the victim or culprit, face a complete turning point in their lives.

Shot in Iloilo and Guimaras, the film revolves around this inevitable point, tied by a single event, two people standing on both ends of a spectrum, the unsuspecting culprit and the unforgiving victim in the search for their own kind of retribution.

I personally know two of the filmmakers  involved in these  entries:  Tara Illenberger and Kyle Fermindoza.

In Kaluskos, single mother Rebekah (Coleen Garcia) is  in the middle of a custody battle when she found  something underneath her daughter's bed that will question her love for her child. When the other Amaya emerges, Rebekah feels the motherly connection that she lost with her daughter.

The film director Roman S. Perez Jr said that it is a psychological domestic thriller about domestic violence: a mother who has challenges performing her expected role that makes her look bad to other people.

Shot in Silay, Negros Occidental, he said that the film examines a kind of feminism that exists from within, which also presents a mental health movement in regards to domestic violence.

 

The  films, often called “indie films”,  embody Cinemalaya’s vision : “the creation of new cinematic works by Filipino filmmakers“ works that boldly articulate and freely interpret the Filipino experience with fresh insight and artistic integrity.”

 

It also aims to invigorate the Philippine filmmaking by developing a new breed of Filipino filmmakers.