Whatever happened to Pier Roxas?

MANILA, Philippines - What would you do if you woke up one day and realized you could not remember the events of the past eight days?

For Pier Roxas, the guy who’s becoming very popular among TV viewers and online communities, thanks to an intriguing depiction of his mysterious life, eight clues hold the key to his true identity.

He’s closer to the truth than he’s ever been with the help of eight creative individuals who have vowed to help bring his memory back.

These eight imaginative storytellers were presented recently by Nokia Philippines at MyCinema at the Greenbelt.

From the close to a thousand participants who joined the contest, the top eight finalists wove the most interesting plots to conclude the baffling tale of Pier Roxas.  

The short filmmaking competition is the highlight of Nokia’s Project geNer8 campaign in collaboration with Smart Gold.

The campaign was launched in line with the unveiling of Nokia’s latest handset, the Nokia N8, dubbed the world’s best entertainment smartphone.

The Nokia N8 is the first in the series of smartphones based on the new Symbian software and designed to bring a familiar, faster, and more intuitive user experience.

It allows users to create high-quality photos and shoot HD-quality videos in supreme clarity with its 12-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, while also allowing them to edit photos and videos on-screen. 

This amazing smartphone was used to shoot the Pier Roxas TV commercial directed by top director Paul Soriano, the first TV commercial ever shot using a mobile phone.        

The top eight finalists who will get to shoot HD-quality scenes with the Nokia N8 based on their submitted storylines are: Darren Codera, a 22-year-old Multimedia Arts student from Parañaque City; Andrei Guarin, a 26-year-old IT professional from Quezon City; Dr. Cyrus Pasamba, 32, of Quezon City, and Glynis Lee, a 23-year-old nurse from Binondo, Manila; Paul Pineda, a 29-year-old scientific journal editor from Makati City; Ray de Leon, a 20-year-old ingest operator from Quezon City; Albert Torralba, a 26-year-old English teacher from Sta. Ana, Manila; Juanita Bantay, a 25-year-old nurse from Bataan; and Mia Buenaventura, a 30-something short film director.    

These finalists came up with the most creative — even outrageous — storylines to complete Pier Roxas’ story given the following leads: He was found on a pier along Roxas Boulevard, he has a facial bruise, a lipstick smudge on his collar, an unfamiliar key, a parking ticket, and a Smart Gold SIM. Pier’s wallet is missing but he still has his Nokia N8 with no contacts.  

Storylines from the chosen finalists range from brain-related scientific experiment and a bad case of phobia, to a pre-programmed hypnotized terrorist and a special agent on an extraordinary adventure. There’s also an interesting mash-up of documentary-comedy as well as a romantic thriller.

The eight finalists will each receive a Nokia N8 and a chance to shoot their submitted script as the concluding sequence to the Pier Roxas story. They were given two consecutive days to prepare their final entries: one day to shoot and one day to edit.

All final entries were uploaded to the Nokia Philippines website and would be judged according to the following criteria: creative storytelling, 30 percent; adherence to the theme, 30 percent; execution, 30 percent; and audience impact, 10 percent.  

The public also gets to vote for the best entry via text or through the Nokia Philippines website. One lucky texter and one online voter will be chosen to win a Nokia N8 each.

The judges picking the grand winner are Paul Soriano, Pepe Diokno and Lilit Reyes. The grand prize winner, to be announced on Dec. 15, will receive P50,000 cash.