RP Movies To Be Showcased At Pusan Int'l Film Fest

Plus: A sad Easter for comedian Chokoleit;Charlene Gonzales off to Harvard Business School; Brangelina in RP rumor proves to be just a ‘rumor’

There was zero Brangelina sighting in Boracay this Holy Week. It must have been a big letdown for local fans of the celebrity couple after word had gotten around that they had reserved a suite in one of the upscale hotels on the island.

Anyway, I doubt very much if Brad and Angelina would have enjoyed their stay, if indeed they had planned to soak up the sun in Bora. The island was packed full with Holy Week vacationeers that they would have had trouble moving around without being mobbed. The best time to fly to Boracay is just after the summer season, before the rains arrive. The beaches are practically deserted, and there would be fewer paparazzi to contend with.

There was a host of local celebs who spent Easter on Boracay, but at least one definitely didn’t enjoy his stay.

Fil-Am model Andrew Wolfe did brief time behind bars after being charged with robbery. It seems that Wolfe and a male friend ganged up on a security guard assigned to a mall on the island and divested the guard of his gun.

Wolfe was let out of jail after he patched things up with the guard in question.

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A sad Easter for comedian Chokoleit.

On Maundy Thursday, his mother, 67-year-old Erlinda Aguilar, was killed in fire that gutted their house in Matina, Davao City.

Reports say that the mom was trapped on the second floor of the burning house. Two of her grandchildren tried to save her, but the door to her room was locked.

Our condolences to Chokoleit.

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By the time you read this column, Charlene Gonzales is in Boston, preparing for her course in Business Management Entrepreneurship in the Harvard Business School.

Charlene left for Boston the other week, but she’ll be back on May 1, to celebrate her birthday with husband Aga Muhlach and their twins Atasha and Andres.

Charlene will also enrol her two kids — Atasha in Brent School and Andres in International School — for this schoolyear.

The Harvard Business School has produced a long line of outstanding alumni. Among them: Michael Bloomberg, business mogul and mayor of New York City; former US president George W. Bush, Robert Kraft, chairman and CEO of the Kraft Group, and Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts.

But did you know that a Filipino is one of the school’s most distinguished alumni? Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, chairman and CEO of the Ayala Corporation, received the prestigious Alumni Achievement Award in 2007.

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Here’s a morale booster for Philippine cinema. The Philippines has been invited to join the Pusan International Film Festival from October 8 to 16. The Pusan (Korea) filmfest is considered as the Cannes Film Festival of Asia because it showcases the best films from the region.

The event focuses on new films and first-time directors, with particular attention to those coming from Asian countries. The filmfest’s representative here, Cho Young Jung, will choose 12 entries for the retrospective portion from among the 43 movies recommended by the Film Development Council of the Philippines.

To help promote the Philippine entries, the council plans to ship two jeepneys to provide free rides during the festival.

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Britney Spears has apologized to her fans for the 30-minute delay in her concert in Vancouver, Canada, last week.

No, it wasn’t because the comebacking pop diva was up to her old antics again. As her publicist explained it, the stage became too smoky “due to a ventilation issue,” and some crew members above the stage became ill.

The concert was halted for the oppressive smoke to clear.

The concert was part of Spears’ Circus tour of the US, Canada and England.