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MOVIE REVIEW
Salvage
Directed by Sherad Anthony Sanchez

By Noel Vera

Sherad Anthony Sanchez’s Salvage (2015) takes its title from the common Filipino slang word for summary execution, which Pete Lacaba in his Manila Times column Carabeef Lengua explains: “It was during martial rule that salvaging came to acquire its present Filipino meaning. To salvage is to save things from a wreckage, but the visual similarity of the word to the Tagalog salbahe (naughty, abusive), which is itself derived from the Spanish salvaje (savage), inevitably led to the present denotation of salvaging as extrajudicial or summary execution of both criminal and subversive elements.”

I remember a simpler explanation, though I can’t remember where I got it nor find any documentary basis online: that the military is “saving” or “salvaging” the victim’s soul from the evils of communism.

You can’t say the military doesn’t have its own perverse, not to mention blasphemous, sense of humor. Nowadays the shadowy folk that ride on motorbikes and do Duterte’s will by shooting people almost at random in the streets of Manila wrap their victims in duct tape, pin comments to the corpses: “Pusher huwag tularan!” ([Drug] pusher don’t imitate!), or draw the Batman insignia on their cardboard squares. The sophomoric comedy continues unabated.

Sanchez’s conceit takes its cue from Mario O’Hara’s great Pangarap ng Puso (Demons, 2000) in conflating the threat of military execution with the threat of a mythical creature in this case the aswang (ghoul or vampire), the difference being this is told through the lens of a handheld video camera, found-footage style.

A difficult genre to get right and Sanchez doesn’t, not completely: the newsmen still look silly running desperately with camcorder on one shoulder, even sillier when one member of the crew passes the camera to another — “You’re running for your life for f***’s sake!” you want to yell at them; “Drop the f***ing camera!”

At the same time you can’t completely dismiss the film for its flaws. Sanchez takes his cue from another not-quite-as-good horror movie, Leo Gabriadze’s Unfriended to use pixilation or distortion (as if from a damaged hard drive or faulty streaming service) in place of special effects — use the errors generated by the media itself as a means of generating disturbing imagery.

Sanchez goes much further than Gabriadze: sometimes the pixilation covers a man’s back like alligator scales, beautiful and fiendishly itch-inducing (you think of the monstrously scaled men in J.G. Ballard’s The Crystal World crawling to shore like primeval amphibians). At one point we have a man and woman being tormented in the middle of a small arena, women and children standing around watching in their finest town fiesta costumes (bright shiny pink and blue dresses). At one point the camera watches an anaconda wrap itself around a woman, the woman screaming in ecstasy as the film strays into Ken Russell territory (Altered States or The Devils anyone?) — by now handheld camera and nightmare have fused into one and you forget the conventions of the whole silly genre as it is being memorably, horrifically, transcended.

Not sure if Sanchez supports the mayor-turned-president of Davao — a significant portion of the Filipino filmmaking industry does and one fears the worst. But intended or not (this was made back in 2015 after all) he’s produced a powerful metaphor for the insidious nature of fanatical evil, the way it turns truth — reality itself — around, manipulates pixels and sound bytes till they mean the opposite of what they are. We are suitably freaked out.

MTRCB Rating: R-16

M:I6 shoot halted as Cruise breaks ankle in stunt

LOS ANGELES – Mission: Impossible 6 has halted filming after Tom Cruise broke his ankle in a botched stunt, the director confirmed Wednesday, while vowing not to push the release date back.

TOM CRUISE attends The Mummy New York Fan Event on June 6. – AFP

Cruise, known for performing his own death-defying stunts, was injured as he leapt between buildings while attached to cables, slamming into a concrete wall.

M:I6 director Christopher McQuarrie took to social media to assuage fears that the movie’s planned July 27, 2018 release date would have to be pushed back.

“Thank you all for your support and concern. Tom is on the mend and MI6 is on track for 07.27.2018,” he tweeted after visiting the 55-year-old A-lister.

McQuarrie – who directed Cruise in Mission: Impossible 5 (2015) and Jack Reacher (2012) – posted a link to an article with British film magazine Empire in which he said his star was “in very good spirits.”

He rejected reports that Cruise had fallen short on the jump, filmed in central London on Saturday, maintaining that the star was always supposed to slam into the side of the target building.

“What happened is a matter of coordinating what Tom is doing with what the camera is doing, which means you have to do it a number of times,” the director said.

“And on the fourth try, he hit the building at a slightly different angle and he broke his ankle. He knew the instant that he hit the building that his ankle was broken. You can see it on his face.”

HAIR-RAISING MOMENTS
Mission: Impossible 6 – co-starring Simon Pegg, Henry Cavill, Rebecca Ferguson, Angela Bassett and Alec Baldwin – has two more months of filming scheduled.

McQuarrie told Empire the length of the required hiatus had yet to be determined, but vowed he would “move heaven and earth” to ensure that the fateful fourth take got into the movie.

The director added that he was rearranging the order of the shoot and using any delay as an opportunity to “look at what we’ve shot and reassess the movie, which is a luxury you don’t normally have.”

Cruise is admired in the industry for his adventurous attitude to filmmaking, which over the years has involved some hair-raising moments on set.

Cruise’s co-stars in summer blockbuster The Mummy revealed earlier this year the actor is not just single-minded when it comes to do doing his own stunts, but cajoles his fellow cast members to get involved too.

“We jump off buildings and towns explode, and Tom really does it all, and he insists his cast do it too,” added Jake Johnson, 39, who plays Cruise’s sidekick in action thriller.

“Yes, I got hurt. My character dies, I almost died. We’d do a stunt and it would hurt, and I’m like, ‘I think something went wrong because it hurt’ and he’d go ‘Well yeah – we jumped off a building, dummy.’”

Paramount, the studio distributing M:I6, and Cruise’s representatives did not respond to requests for comment. – AFP

Air Juan targets higher capacity in next 5 years

AIR JUAN Aviation, Inc. (Air Juan) said it plans to increase by fivefold its passenger capacity in the next five years as it aims to double capacity and expand its network.

AirJuan
www.facebook.com/airjuan.ph/

“[We want to increase the passenger capacity in five years to] times five,” Air Juan President John Anthony Gutierrez told reporters yesterday when asked by how much they want to increase passenger capacity during the company’s fifth anniversary event.

Paolo Misa, Air Juan marketing head, said the firm accommodates around 1,000-1,500 passengers per month, with 20% of the business serving chartered flights.

In line with its planned increase in capacity, the company plans to acquire about 10 new aircraft to add to its current fleet of 11. However, they have yet to identify the aircraft models based on demand. “Once we see the volume is there, we can decide,” Mr. Gutierrez said.

Mr. Misa added that they are also looking at acquiring fewer aircraft but with higher seating capacity, depending on the changes in demand for popular routes.

“Then again, we can’t say that we want 10 more aircraft, [maybe], if it’s a strong route, we can go 19 seats… there are very promising routes,” Mr. Misa told reporters.

Air Juan started its operations of chartered flights in 2012 and started scheduled chartered flights in Palawan in 2014.  It now operates scheduled flights to 22 destinations in the country.

Its aircraft fleet is composed of Cessna Grand Caravan seaplanes and landplanes, as well as Bell helicopters used for chartered flights. It has three designated hubs: Manila, Puerto Princesa, and Cebu.

Mr. Gutierrez said they initially targeted their services to “time-sensitive clients,” many of whom are foreigners both on leisure and business travel, as they bring passengers directly to their destinations without going through the congestion of airports. 

“For those areas without infrastructure to host big aircrafts, we can operate,” Mr. Gutierrez said in a mix of English and Filipino.

Mr. Gutierrez said Air Juan’s most popular route by far is the Manila-Puerto Galera route, which flies nine times a week via Cessna seaplanes, while the “most highlighted route” is the Busuanga, Coron route, which flies directly to popular resorts in the area, including Two Seasons, Busuanga Bay Lodge, and Sangat Island.

“That is pretty much the business model we want to follow in the Philippines,” Mr. Gutierrez said, referring to the model of landing at resorts in famous island destinations in the country.

Mr. Gutierrez also said that in places such as Cuyo in Palawan, a third-class municipality, they mainly serve locals who have urgent needs in more urbanized areas.

“The fulfillment for us is we are able to help the local populace,” Mr. Gutierrez said.

Mr. Misa said that they will be starting a seaplane service from the Mactan International Airport or the South Road Properties in Cebu to fly to island destinations in the province, such as Malapascua Island. They will be launching services to Kandaya Resort in Cebu in October.

Mr. Misa also said that while Air Juan plans to fly to Mindanao and cover many parts of the country in five years, they are treading with caution: “We are careful not to stretch ourselves too much, because safety is a priority of the company… We also want to be careful not just in terms of operations but even in terms of investing. We want to make sure everything we do is or has potential to make profit, eventually.”

Mr. Gutierrez said that they are still in the investment phase of the business. He added that they do not try to compete with large airline companies as they serve to “complement” the services of such firms by bringing passengers directly to specific destinations. — Patrizia Paola C. Marcelo

Harbor Star opens Iloilo branch

HARBOR STAR Shipping Services, Inc. (TUGS), an integrated marine services provider, inaugurated its Iloilo City branch on Aug. 11 as part of the listed company’s program to increase base ports around the country and expand operations. TUGS currently has two tugboats, MT Mira and MT Wezen, assigned at the Iloilo Port, providing service mainly to international vessels. — BW

PHL contingent gets SEA Games bid under way

THE 490-athlete Philippine contingent for the 29th Southeast Asian Games begin their campaign as the two-week regional sporting meet officially kicks off tomorrow in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

PHL contingent gets SEA Games bid under way
Philippine Sports Commission Chairman William Ramirez led the send-off for Filipino athletes seeing action in the 29th Southeast Asian Games which officially kicks off tomorrow in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. — MIKE MURILLO

Competing in 37 events out of a possible 38, Team Philippines aims to better its showing in the previous staging of the Games back in 2015, where it finished with a total medal haul of 29 gold medals, 26 silver and 66 bronze, good for sixth place.

Local sports officials said the target for this edition of the Games is to bring home at least 50 gold medals.

As the athletes went off to compete, top sports brass of the land were one in wishing them the best and reminding them to give their all and compete with integrity and respect, the way Philippine athletes always have.

Citing the great Filipino athletes that have represented the country in many international competitions, Philippine Sports Commission Chairman William Ramirez highlighted the need for the athletes to bring their A-game for flag and country come the Games.

“When you go there, don’t just go there for yourselves. Every single Filipino is cheering for you. You athletes are the heart and souls of this country. Fight with integrity and give your best,” said Mr. Ramirez during his speech at the athletes’ sendoff last week.

On the part of Philippine Olympic Committee President Jose Cojuangco, Jr., he brought to fore how Filipinos have fighting hearts and would not back down to challenges easily.

“Always remember you’re representing the Filipino people. The fighting heart and the fighting spirit are always there and the Filipino will never stop fighting. You are Filipinos, you are sportsmen, and you have the guts to compete with the best of them,” said Mr. Cojuangco in his own speech.

Serving as chef-de-mission of Team Philippines, which also includes some 200 coaches, is Cynthia Carrion, who expressed bullishness over the country’s chances in this latest edition of the Games.

EARLY MEDAL HAULS
Meanwhile, the Philippines bagged silver and bronze medals even before the SEA Games formally opened care of sepak takraw and archery.

The Philippine sepak takraw squad got the silver medal in the men’s chin lone linking event 3 at the Stadium Titiwangsa on Wednesday.

After months of training in the lead-up to the Games, the sepak takraw team saw its efforts pay off as it collected a score of 271 to finish behind host country Malaysia, which finished with a commanding 391 points.

“Chin lone is a subjective sport so it’s really difficult to beat the host country,” said Philippine Amateur Sepak Takraw Association president Karen Tanchanco-Caballero, whose wards made it to the finals after besting Brunei, 293-157.

Ms. Tanchanco-Caballero said they expect a couple of gold medals in regu events in the coming days, but they would rather keep it low key to avoid complacency.

After that, archer Paul dela Cruz followed suit as he nipped Zulfadhli Ruslan, 10-9, in a thrilling sudden-death, shoot-off to salvage the bronze medal in the men’s individual archery compound event at the Synthetic Turf Field inside the KL Sports City in Bukit Jalil. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

Children of the mist

MOVIE REVIEW
Hamog
Directed by Ralston Jover

By Noel Vera

Ralston Jover’s Hamog (Haze, 2015) starts appropriately enough with just that: a thick cloud hovering low over humid Manila canals. The camera (presumably mounted on a drone) glides towards and rises over a huge sewer pipe lined with cardboard, on which the homeless young lie sleeping.

This is Jover straying into a genre (the urban underaged poor) that has produced a number of powerful films: Hector Babenco’s Pixote, Vittorio de Sica’s Shoeshine, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Nobody Knows, and, above all, Luis Bunuel’s savagely great Los Olvidados.

The Philippines has struggled to produce an equivalent and has not quite succeeded in my opinion, though Jover’s debut feature Bakal Boys (still to my mind his best work to date) is a fine attempt.

This film isn’t as good — it doesn’t have that first feature’s directness or simplicity or plainspoken poetry — but that may partly be because this is more inordinately ambitious hence doomed to experience failure; its courage should be recognized.

The plot proper starts out with the aforementioned boys’ attempt to steal from taxi driver Danny (OJ Mariano) then splits into two separate threads: the first follows Rashid (Zaijan Jaranilla) as he mourns one of their own: Moy (Bon Andrew Lentejas) who was hit by a speeding minivan while evading pursuit. Rashid feels he has to give his “brod” a proper burial, and finds out (much as the eponymous character did in Laszlo Nemes’s Son of Saul) that a burial isn’t an easy feat to accomplish, not in a concentration camp, not as a homeless kid in the streets of Manila.

Rashid hustles, begs, steals. At one point you have to ask: Why is he doing this? Jover doesn’t provide easy answers but two come to mind: Moy was a friend and a friend on streets where people turn on you more often than help you is gold; Moy’s death was an opportunity for Rashid to throw himself into a quest, any quest, and this is also gold — better than endless days of sniffing glue, hustling for money to buy glue. The second story’s more interesting and more problematic. Jinky (Therese Malvar) is caught by Danny; he drags her to the police, to social services, then to her home where he discovers a loud slatternly woman with a half dozen kids and zero interest in getting her daughter back. Now (slight implausible turn of events here) he reluctantly volunteers to take her home as a housemaid.

For every narrative development that appears outlandish (his wife enjoys an open relationship with another man), Jover adds one that lands surprisingly right (the wife’s boyfriend openly and continually prepositions Jinky); for every character trait that feels ill-prepared (the wife does a sudden about-turn, offers Jinky a home), we see one that strikes us as eerily honest (Danny refuses to have sex with Jinky or his wife; thanks to his odd domestic situation he seems to have given up sex altogether). 

Perhaps Jover needed to do a few more drafts of the script, perhaps he needed a longer format to introduce each twisted detail properly, perhaps he needed to work on his tone (A black comedy?). All that said Hamog is not vaporous; there’s enough ideas here for two and a half films, maybe three. A handful of those ideas stay with you, like a troublesome girl who refuses to fit anywhere no matter how hard you try.

MTRCB Rating: R-16

The history of objects is what is important

THE PICKERS know what they’re doing: they go to America’s back roads and pick through junk in the hopes of finding treasure. The television show, on the History channel, may lend more screen time to the boys – antique traders Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz – but while the boys are on the road, Danielle Colby holds down the fort at the shop, Antique Archaeology. While dealing with customers, she also sometimes gives the boys leads on great picks.

Danielle-Colby
THE PICKER’s Danielle Colby

Covered in tattoos and sometimes sporting a look reminiscent of rockabilly fashions in the 1950s, Ms. Colby seems to be a tough chick with a touch of playfulness, but she takes her job seriously, and gives loving insight on the place of the objects she deals with in history. When is junk really just junk, and when is it treasure?

To her, it all boils down to a story.

“When you provide a history to that item, that becomes treasure. Otherwise, if it has no history to it, then it really decreases the value and people just look at it literally as junk,” she told BusinessWorld during the entertainment convention HISTORY Con 2017 at the World Trade Center Manila which ran from Aug. 10 to 13. The people behind The Pickers, after all, work with a lot of people like hoarders, and as they sort through the piles of stuff in their homes and garages, the boys find something worthy to collect or sell. “Anything can be of historical value.”

“Not only does it tell the story, and that’s great for history… but it also adds value to the item when you can actually know the story behind it, because it strikes an emotional chord with people.”

For example, she points to her obsession with costumes from Burlesque acts of the past. “You find a costume… it’s pretty. It has beads on it, it sparkles, and it’s great. But once you actually delve into it, you find a name on the costume… you find the dancer, you talk to her, you talk to her family – most likely she’s passed away – and get a good sense of who that actually was, then you start to create this whole entire history around this piece, that otherwise, it’s just a piece of textile.”

While weaving stories around your grandmother’s purses and such might provoke sentimental value, does it always translate to real financial value? “They’re the same. When it comes to historical items, that’s what adds to the financial value.”

While the hoarders and collectors they talk to on the show might feel lucky about getting hundreds to thousands of dollars from what just sat in their homes, it’s nice to think that around our homes, we’d have valuable treasure lying around as well. When asked then, what things we should hold on to when we collect, she simply said: “You should hold on to what you love. The things that you love, you’re going to know more history about them.

“In order for something to retain its value, it has to be an item that’s really highly prized.”

In a chapter from The Substance of Style by Virginia Postrel, the author cited an interview by Francine Maroukian with designer Karim Rashid in a 2002 Town and Country article titled “What’s Really Important,” which was published just a few months after the 9/11 attacks in New York. “What really endures are artifacts, effigies, things that speak about a time, place, or civilization. When people say to me that everything seems trivial or meaningless, I believe the opposite. Objects outlive us, and they are the symbols of our culture and history,” said Mr. Rashid.

Ms. Colby said: “I visited the museum in New York. They had this installation that was just 9/11. And it was literally just like, a shoe, and a scrap of metal from a building, and like, a water bottle.” Discarded detritus, and without knowing the story, the items seem just like random pieces of junk. “And then you read the story, and it pulls you in, and it made you understand what was happening at that time.” – Joseph L. Garcia

Iloilo-based truck drivers go on strike

TRUCK DRIVERS of ARR trucking services have gone on strike following management’s failure to grant them their minimum wage request and other benefits. Elmer D. Blancaflor, president of the Iloilo ARR Enterprises Labor Organization (IARRELO), said the group started their strike on Aug. 16 with 13 of the 18 members joining. “We proposed that the management grant us with the minimum wage which is part of the economic provision of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). But until now they have yet to respond to our request,” Mr. Blancaflor said. The group also filed charges against the management for illegal dismissal, unfair labor practice and union busting before the National Labor Relations Commission, an attached quasi-judicial agency of the Department of Labor and Employment. While the CBA negotiation is ongoing, Mr. Blancaflor said he and the union secretary were dismissed for supposed redundancy. Their respective assigned truck units were also transferred to another province where ARR Trucking also operates. The Partido Manggagawa has expressed support for the union. — Louine Hope U. Conserva

PetroEnergy books higher net income

PETROENERGY Resources Corp. reported a consolidated net income of $6.55 million in the first half, higher by 180% compared with $2.34 million in the same period last year, the company told the stock exchange on Thursday.

The figure translates to a 401% increase in net income attributable to the equity holders of the parent firm, it added.

The company said its strong performance was driven by higher income contribution from its renewable energy projects: 20-megawatt (MW) Maibarara geothermal power project in Batangas, 36-MW Nabas wind power project in Aklan, and the 50-MW Tarlac solar power project in Tarlac.

During the period, total exported electricity from the three plants rose to 174,810 megawatt-hour (MWh) compared with 152,898 MWh in same semester last year.

“Our renewable energy facilities are showing good results in terms of energy yield and operational efficiencies. We are optimistic that if we are able to sustain this performance, we will be on-track in achieving our full year targets,” said PetroEnergy Resources President Milagros V. Reyes in a statement.

Before the end of the year, PetroEnergy’s subsidiary Maibarara Geothermal, Inc. is expecting to start the commercial operations of its 12-MW Maibarara-2 expansion.

Earlier this month PetroEnergy said it had obtained the environmental clearance for its Puerto Princesa solar power project, which will be the first utility-scale green power project in Palawan province.

The company said slightly higher average crude oil prices also contributed to the profit increase, with average price reaching $50.38 per barrel for the first half of 2017 compared to $35.59 per barrel in the same period last year. 

PetroEnergy’s petroleum asset in Gabon, West Africa produces about 16,000 barrels of oil per day from four producing fields. PetroEnergy reports its financial data in dollars for ease in accounting for its overseas oil revenues.

On Thursday, shares in PetroEnergy climbed 3.77% to close at P7.44 each. — Victor V. Saulon

SEA Games-bound Gilas out to ease pain of Korea loss in FIBA Asia Cup

By Michael Angelo S. Murillo
Reporter

FEELING the pain of their “big brothers” and the entire nation after the country’s loss to South Korea in the quarterfinals of the 2017 FIBA Asia Cup, the Gilas Pilipinas squad bound for the 29th Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, has vowed to bring home the gold medal to soothe the pain of the stinging loss the Philippines absorbed at the hands of an old nemesis.

SEA Games-bound Gilas out to ease pain of Korea loss in FIBA Asia Cup
The SEA Games-bound Gilas Pilipinas with its various stakeholders during the team’s sendoff yesterday. — MIKE MURILLO

In the sendoff hosted for them by major backer Chooks-to-Go at the Edsa Shangri-La Hotel in Mandaluyong City yesterday, members of the Jong Uichico-coached Gilas SEA Games team said like every basketball-loving Filipino, they, too, were reeling from the shock 118-86 loss their FIBA Asia Cup counterparts were dealt by the Koreans, something they would like to make up for as they embark on their own quest.

“We all know what happened last night. We want to make up for our big brothers. We want to win the gold medal in the SEA Games so that when we go back home everybody will be happy,” said guard Baser Amer of the Meralco Bolts.

He went on to say that from his end, he has become more determined to do everything he can to help the team win and secure for the country its 18th SEA Games basketball title.

Like Mr. Amer, Kiefer Ravena cannot wait to start their job in Malaysia and begin the “healing.”

“The SEA Games got added meaning for us after what happened in the FIBA Asia Cup. We are taking the lessons of it. That’s basketball for you and sometimes things do not go your way. But all is not loss. We have an opportunity to bounce back and hopefully we get the job done,” the former Ateneo King Eagle said.

Apart from Messrs. Amer and Ravena, also part of the team are Kevin Ferrer, Troy Rosario, Almond Vosotros, Von Pessumal, Reymar Jose, Mike Tolomia, Kobe Paras and Ray Parks, Jr.

Also part of the squad are Christian Standhardinger and Carl Bryan Cruz, who will rejoin the team after seeing action in the FIBA Asia Cup in Beirut, Lebanon. On standby is forward Mac Belo.

ALL-OUT SUPPORT
Meanwhile, Chooks-to-Go, which has been a staunch supporter of the Gilas basketball program, from the 3×3 World Cup, Jones Cup and FIBA Asia Cup, reiterated its commitment to it notwithstanding the “shortcomings” Gilas has been having in tournaments it is participating in so far.

“Personally, win or lose, I enjoy watching our national team play. So the entire journey since January this year has been exciting for us and our organization. The Gilas program and team can rest assured that Chooks-to-Go would be supportive and behind the team in whatever way we can,” said Ronald Mascariñas, president of Chooks-to-Go parent Bounty Agro Ventures Inc.

“We are happy with the progress of the program,” he added.

Birdshot: inspired by a true story

MIKHAIL RED was only 23 when he and his film crew shot his second full-length feature Birdshot (his first was Rekorder) over 23 days on location in Davao (“for the eagles”), Isabela, Fairview in Quezon City, and Tanay, Rizal.

Birdshot tells the story of a farm girl who wanders into a forest reserve where she shoots and kills a critically endangered and protected Philippine Eagle. When local authorities track down the poacher of the national bird, they find more than they expected.

Birdshot was the opening film of the recently concluded Cinemalaya Film Festival.

“It is based on a true event,” Mr. Red told BusinessWorld. “I read a news article about a farmer who shot, killed, and ate a Philippine Eagle. I was intrigued by the scenario — a man unaware of the crime he commits — his motivation is purely survival.

“Birdshot is about coexistence, and the food chain or pecking order of Philippine society.”

There seems to be another layer beneath this theme: agrarian unrest. While reticent about discussing it, Mr. Red said: “We reference a lot of injustices that have occurred in the past, and even the present. The film shows how we destroy our national symbol through the extinction of the Philippine Eagle and through the extinction of societal truth and justice itself.”

Producer Pamela Reyes lead the search for the film’s protagonist, Maya. The girl had to be a fresh face, someone who had never been seen on the big screen. “We needed a girl who transforms within the film. She has to come of age. We needed her to look 14-15. Mary Joy [Apostol] was 17 at the time of production [she is now 19, and a college student]. But her versatility and her balance of grace and ferocity made her perfect for the role of Maya,” Mr. Red said.

The film features Ku Aquino as Maya’s father, Arnold Reyes and John Arcilla as the town policemen, and Dido de la Paz as the town’s police chief. Mr. Red co-wrote the screenplay with Rae Red.

Birdshot, which had participated in 16 festivals, competing in four of them, was adjudged Best Film at the Asian Future Competition of the Tokyo Film Festival 2016, and was accorded special mention in the Bangkok ASEAN Film Festival. Birdshot has more festivals lined up until mid-2018.

Mr. Red is shooting his third feature, Neomanila, this month, planning to premiere it in October during the QCinema film festival. He is also preparing a horror film (Eerie) for 2018.

Birdshot is one of 12 featured films in the Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino (PPP) which runs from Aug. 16 to 22. — Susan Claire Agbayani

MTRCB Rating: R-13

Preparations under way for 1st BIMP-EAGA culture and arts festival

ARTISTS AND indigenous cultural experts from the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) are gathering in General Santos City and Sarangani province on Sept. 20-24 for the 1st Budayaw Festival. The sub-region’s diverse art forms will be simultaneously featured in various venues. The Budayaw Festival is envisioned to be held every two years, rotating within the four member countries. In a press conference earlier this month, Engr. Maritess K. Maguindra, director of the Bureau on Cultural Heritage of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), said “Budayaw is a platform and mechanism to bring about cultural appreciation.” The ARMM will be showcasing works of its cultural artists and will be setting up an exhibit on the Muslim Filipino’s history and culture. “Twenty years of economic cooperation in the BIMP-EAGA led to the realization that culture is an element in the sustainable development of the four countries,” said artist Nestor T. Horfilla, who is heading the festival organizing committee. Budayaw comes from words ‘Budaya,’ a Malay term that means culture, and ‘Dayaw,’ a Filipino word that signifies goodness, value and beauty. — Mindanao Bureau

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