Nora snares award in Venice

Dante Mendoza’s Thy Womb is making a big splash in Venice.

The latest news is that Nora Aunor won the Bisato d’ Oro Award for her role in the film. The award was given by Premio Della Critica Indipendente, which is made up of film critics.

Thy Womb is entered in the Venice International Film Festival where it is competing for the Golden Lion award along with 17 other entries from around the world.

An encouraging sign is that Thy Womb got a five-minute standing ovation after its screening.

And the black dress Lovi Poe, one of the cast, wore at the Red Carpet, was voted the “Most Beautiful Gown,” Dante texted Philippine Star Entertainment Editor Ricky Lo. The gown was designed by Cary Santiago.

Nora wore a gown by Boy Palma to the affair and Mercedes Cabral, who also stars in the movie, chose a creation by Harvey Cenit.

Dante said he was “overwhelmed” by the standing ovation for Thy Womb. “I’m happy to be back at the VIFF. The first time I competed here was in 2009 with Lola.”

Dante is no stranger to international film festivals. He has a long list of awards for his films. The biggest was for Kinatay, for which he won Best Director in the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

In The Womb, Ms. Aunor is cast as a woman who is infertile. Because her husband is bent on having a child, she looks for a woman who can give him one.

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Why was Sarah Geronimo weeping as she was singing Forever’s Not Enough at her concert in a casino in California?

Maybe it was because the song’s lyrics made her homesick. Then again, it could because she was missing somebody dear to her. Somebody like Gerald Anderson?

Sarah will find it hard to deny her tears because the emotional moment was captured on video.

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The Democratic Party unleashed star power during the national convention last week that proclaimed President Barack Obama as the party’s candidate in the election in November.

Hollywood starlets Eva Longoria, Scarlett Johansson and Kerry Washington took to the stage to make a pitch for Obama.

“The Eva Longoria who worked at Wendy’s flipping burgers — she needed a tax break. But the Eva Longoria who works on movie sets does not,” the star of Desperate Housewives said, taking a dig at Obama’s Republican rival Mitt Romney who the Democrats are portraying as protecting the rich from heavy taxes.

Washington said: “I’m here not just as an actress but as a woman, an African-American, a granddaughter of immigrants. A person who could not have afforded college without the help of student loans and as one of millions of volunteers working to re-elect President Obama!”

Johansson recalled that as a child growing up in New York City, her father “barely made enough to get by. We moved every year, and we finally settled in a housing development for lower middle income families. We went to public schools and depended on programs for school transport and lunches, as did most of my friends.”

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Britain’s Prince Harry won’t be going to wild parties for the rest of the year.

He has been deployed to Afghanistan on a four-month tour of military duty as a helicopter co-pilot and gunner.

Captain Wales, as the 27-year-old prince is officially referred to, was whisked to Afghanistan weeks after his naked photos shot during a party in Las Vegas went viral in the social media.

So is the Afghanistan deployment punishment for Harry’s randy exploits? Not at all, says the British military. “It goes without saying that one doesn’t deploy as an Apache pilot to Afghanistan at short notice. Prince Harry’s time in Las Vegas was his last break before the frontline.”