ARE FILIPINOS READY FOR QUALITY MOVIES?

The production team and cast of Thy Womb director Brillante Mendoza and Superstar Nora Aunor, Mercedes Cabral, Glenda Kennedy and executive producer Melvin Mangada

 

Manila Standard Today

http://manilastandardtoday.com/2013/01/02/are-filipinos-ready-for-quality-movies/

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This question is always the topic of serious movie critics. Are the Filipinos ready or willing to pay good money for a serious movie?

Case in point is how Thy Womb is doing at the box office. TheBrillante Mendoza film is clearly the best among the eight movies being shown (or has it already pulled out?) in the ongoing Metro Manila Film Festival. Yet, it trails in the box-office tally, being at the bottom, behind another worthy film El Presidente.

Congratulations to the two, you deserve the award. In fact, the Thy Womb deserves to win first Best Picture but the jurors gave it to One More Try, a film of lesser importance, even beating El Presidente. I don’t understand why a film can’t win both the Gatpuno Antonio Villegas Award and Best Picture at the same time.A friend says that Brillante Mendoza and Nora Aunor of Thy Womb are vindicated after winning in last Thursday’s MMFF Awards.

Vindication is nothing but affirmation of the quality Thy Womb. It is a world-class oeuvre, acknowledged by film cognoscenti overseas with its awards and citations.

With the award at the MMFF, I am curious if more Filipinos would now watch the movie?

I am inclined to think that it will remain to be at the bottom in the box-office race. And despite the honors the festival gave the film, theater owners will continue to pull the movie out and replace it with a film that guarantees box office.

What’s the problem, really?

No, Thy Womb or El Presidente are not watchable films. The audience just doesn’t want to watch either of them.

They are the kinds of films parents can’t bring their children along. And this is the holiday season, the marketing strategy of any business outfits is focused on children.

Now, what happens in the long run when we have the Metro Manila Film Festival every year?

So, parents drag their children to the movies, but they dictate what their children watch. In most cases, they use their children as excuse so they can watch the movies they like. When parents taste drag their three-year old kids to theaters, film education begins. When the kids are exposed to movies like Si Agimat, or Sisterakas all the time, their taste in movies are gradually defined, and what is developed is carried through their adult years. So now, do they want to drag their children to Thy Womb? I doubt it.

Actress Ruby Ruiz with director Brillante Mendoza

So, the problem of films like Thy Womb or El Presidente is not because they’re not good, but parents choose to expose their children to bad movies, instead of  helping them develop a good sense and taste for cinema by watching films like El Presidente (for a lesson in history) and Thy Womb (for an insight into fellow Filipinos culture in the South).

In the process, constant exposure to bad cinema among children results to audience shying away from good films because they think that the bad movies they have seen when they were kids are what is actually good cinema.

Do you agree with me, Amable Tikoy Aguiluz?

Nora Aunor mania rages this December with ‘Himala’ in HD, 2 MMFF entries

Nora Aunor in 'Thy Womb'

By ARNEL RAMOS

InterAksayon.com

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Source:  http://www.interaksyon.com/entertainment/nora-aunor-mania-rages-this-december-with-himala-in-hd-2-mmff-entries/

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Noramania rages this December with four Nora Aunor-centric events that will send the whole town talking.

In celebration of Ishmael Bernal’s hypnotic 1982 classic “Himala” turning 30 this year, a restored version of the film that starred Nora Aunor in her most iconic role will be exhibited at the Cinema One Originals film festival in early December.

Jointly restored by the ABS-CBN Film Archive and Central Digital Lab. Inc., this “Himala”  in HD (high definition) premiered at the 69^th Venice International Film Festival last September.

“Himala” features one of the superstar’s most iconic roles, that of the bogus visionary Elsa. It was on the set of “Himala” in Ilocos that its screenwriter Ricky Lee met the legendary actress for the first time.

“I was already a fan back then,” Lee told InterAksyon via email, “kasi superstar na siya noon, samantalang ako kabago-bago ko lang sa movies. Since I was the one who chose her to be Elsa in ‘Himala,’ siyempre I was praying that she would say ‘yes’ to the project so when she said ‘yes,’ that was heaven-sent.”

Aunor and Lee would become lifelong friends but not right there on the set of “Himala”.

“I would often go to the set in Ilocos and I would see her,” recalls the screenwriter. “Mahiyain siya at tahimik, nakaupo lang sa isang tabi, walang kaarte-arte, parang hindi superstar. Eh ako mahiyain din, kaya halos ‘di kami nagkakausap. It was only later when we did ‘Andrea’ (in 1990) together that we became good friends at mabilis kaming nagkasundo.”

Coinciding with “Himala” in HD’s Venice premiere was the inclusion of “Thy Womb,” Nora’s first film with internationally acclaimed Pinoy filmmaker Dante Mendoza, in the main competition category in the prestigious fesatival.

After being shut out of the eight official entries in the annual Metro Manila Film Festival, “Thy Womb” ended up joining the festival anyway. It took over the slot vacated by “Kwento ni Lola Basyang” which backed out from the race.

This means that Aunor has two MMFF entries this year. She also appears in a guest role as the second wife of Emilio Aguinaldo in the biopic “El Presidente.”

On television, Nora just won a Best TV Drama Actress award from the Philippine Movie Press Club for “Sa Ngalan Ng Ina,” her first project with her new home network TV5 and also her last collaboration with the late esteemed director, Mario O’Hara.

Nora likewise shines in a small yet integral part as a fairy queen in TV5’s well-received fantasy series “Enchanted Garden.”

She may have had ups and downs in her lengthy and checkered career as a movie queen but Nora continues to be relevant and timeless. She has, in fact, ceased to be merely iconic. Nora Aunor has become immortal.

Nora Aunor in 'Himala'

Ricky Lee tries to explain his dear friend’s enduring appeal.

“She will always be a beautiful enigma to all of us. Sometimes the audience and her fans feel that they already know her very well, but the next instance she proves to be as mysterious as ever. She has retained that mystique that keeps you asking for more from her, that keeps you wanting to know her more and more.

“She makes you feel like she is just like your ordinary neighbor, na kapantay mo lang siya, pero at the same time you also feel that she is above there, brilliant and unreachable. She combines the uncombinable. She makes you feel that everything good is possible.”

Nora’s current manager, Noel Ferrer, offers: “She has defied the conventions of a star and has given the term a new meaning and elevated it to a level that no one in Philippine show business has ever achieved.”

NORA AUNOR FILM FEST

HIMALA

Restored HD Version

Showing on December 5, 2012

Premiere Nights: Decemeber 2 and 4

with Launching of 

HIMALA COFFEE TABLE BOOK 

by Ricky Lee

EL PRESIDENTE

Metro Manila Film Festival Entry

Showing on December 25, 2012

THY WOMB

Metro Manila Film Festival Entry

Showing on December 25, 2012

Premiere Night: November 23 - Davao

EL PRESIDENTE: A BREATHE FROM INDIE

La Aunor and El Presidente:
Nora Aunor and Laguna Gov. ER Ejercito
are flanked
by producer Mylene Enriquez and director Tikoy Aguiluz.

by Jerry Donato

The Philippine Star

Friday, August 12, 2011

Period films are few and far between. That’s why El Presidente starring Laguna Gov. ER Ejercito and Nora Aunor is something to look forward next year. Let’s admit it: There have been few historical films made in recent years. Baler and Amigo come quickly into mind. While others like Independencia seem to fall under the independent genre.


El Presidente is a breather from commercial and indiemovies populating the silver screen. One doesn’t need to cross one’s fingers for any production delay because theepic movie is all systems go. The cameras started to grind early this week. The producers have allocated a budget amounting to P80M to P100M. Cinephiles can expect a grandiose set design and colorful costumes capturing the movie’s milieu. Robin Padilla has expressed interest in playing the Andres Bonifacio role.


“Yes, I did,”offers Gov. ER when asked if he had to inform his uncle, former President Joseph Estrada, about Nora’s participation in the movie. At the height of the call for Erap’s resignation, Nora sided with then Vice-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. “I asked his permission that Ms. Mylene (Enriquez, filmproducer) was getting us as actors for El Presidente at para makasama si Ms. Nora Aunor. Ang sagot po ni Pangulong Erap sa akin, ni Tito Joseph, ay ‘Sana kumita ang pelikula.’ Ang sabi ko, ‘Tito Joseph, hindi naman po yung kita ang hinahabol ng aming producer. Ang hinahabol po dito ay para makagawa ng isang quality film.’’’


Gov. ER also recalls that his uncle has recently issued a statement over DZMM and ABS-CBN that Erap has forgiven those people “he has to forgive, especially Ms. Nora Aunor. And past is past. It’s about time to forgive everybody and be friends again. I’m very sure the former President and Ms. Nora Aunor will cross paths and talk again.”


Recording an album and doing movies are what Nora misses the most while in the states. But she admits she was set to go to Manila to see her brother Buboy Villamayor.


“I really wanted to visit my brother even if there was no movie project to make; no press and fans to welcome me,” she says. “I wanted to know how my brother was.”


But German Moreno, Nora’s business manager, told her to delay a bit her homecoming because there were possible projects under negotiation for Nora. She obliged and one of the results was the Tikoy Aguiluz-directed and Scenema Concept International-produced film.


Since El Presidente is her first movie in eight years, the Maria Agoncillo role for Nora is as big as her stature. Gov. ER says Nora’s onscreen presence is felt all throughout the film. She plays the second wife of Gen. Emilio Famy Aguinaldo. After the demise of the first wife named Hilaria del Rosario due to leprosy, Emilio and Maria tied the knot. He was in his late 70s while she was in her early 60s. The governor says the movie will also revolve around the idea that behind the president — a great man at that — is a great woman. Gen. Aguinaldo lived for 95 years.


Contrary to the linear chronological storytelling common in biographies, El Presidente begins with Gen. Aguinaldo being wheel chaired by Maria towards an American journalist waiting for them. In between scenes, different sequences from the general’s life will appear via flashback.


El Presidente might run for two and a half hours capsulating Gen. Aguinaldo’s struggles and triumphs as a stateman, patriot, revolutionary leader, father and husband from his birth in 1869 to his centenary in 1969.


Whether it is an indie or mainstream film, El Presidente is simply a welcome change.

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Source:

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?publicationSubCategoryId=70&articleId=715888