The earth’s last remaining forest cover cleans the air we breathe, purifies water systems, provides habitat for plants and animals, and even helps slow down climate change by removing heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It benefits everyone, but what happens if trees are indiscriminately cut for the high-value wood, if the most profitable minerals...
Tag: film
Post
Hits and misses in the Summer Metro Manila Film Festival
In an earlier face-to-face interview with lawyer Josabeth “Joji” Alonso, chief operating officer of Quantum Films, she casually said that an official entry to the ongoing Summer Metro Manila Film Festival (SMMFF), “About Us But Not About Us,” wouldn’t make money. To think that her office is a co-producer of the project. But then she said...
Post
Film continues to help Filipinos remember the sins of martial law
Shortly after World War II, many survivors of the attempted annihilation of Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies recalled the final plea of their fellow prisoners while being herded to impending death: “Remember! Do not let the world forget!” It was in honoring that anguished plea that Holocaust survivors set up exhibits and scholarly...
Post
Kidlat Tahimik’s ‘Balikbayan #1’ reverses the colonialist narrative
The story of humankind is replete with plot twists and unexpected events. Take, for example, the matter of who first circumnavigated the world. The usual answer is Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan who, on Sept. 20, 1519, led a five-ship, 270-strong expedition from Spain to search for a westward route toward the Spice Islands, now the...
Post
Where is PH in world cinema map?
Hollywood’s 95th presentation of the Oscars—deemed the mother of all movie awards—is the most revealing in decades. Asians won the top awards in the annual derby, with Malaysian Michelle Yeoh taking home the Best Actress plum for the seriocomic “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” It was the first time ever for an Asian woman. The...
Post
They also deserve press coverage
It has become a joke in local show biz—a film suddenly being shown in movie houses without so much as a word about it and its content, or its cast, or its director, to inform viewers and stir their interest. When a producer screens a film without the necessary drum-beating, the biz is abuzz with...
Post
How will the Metro film festival set in April fare?
The Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), the government agency that organizes the annual Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) in December, has no qualms about green-lighting the staging of the event this summer. With health protocols eased as coronavirus cases decline, the first Summer Metro Manila Film Festival (SMMFF) has been scheduled for April 8-18 by...
Post
Politics, sex cinema, deaths stirred Philippine show biz in 2022
Up to the end, the Year of the Tiger has been a period of growling events and pulsating newsmakers in Philippine show biz—some wild, some victorious, some tragic. Seemingly like the tiger, the media-savvy stars were contradictory in behavior: intimidatingly fearsome yet warm-hearted, temperamental yet calm. The coronavirus in all its mutations is very much...
Post
Triangle of excellence in acting
Thirty-two years after West End brought Filipino musical theater talent to the international stage in a major way via “Miss Saigon,” the European movie industry, with Hollywood connections, is finally catching up: It’s putting Philippine-born, -raised, and -based actors on the world cinema map with lead roles in high-profile films. And just like Lea Salonga,...
Post
Gawad Urian fulfills its social responsibility
More than being just another award-giving group in the film industry, the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (Manunuri) is a corps of critics who review and recommend films for their commercial, artistic values and it’s social responsibility to serve the best interest of Filipino moviegoers. Since it was established in 1976, the Manunuri has changed shallow...
