Triumphant in Toronto

The Philippine delegation to the recently-concluded Toronto Film Festival is back–triumphantly, I must add. The Philippines actually sent two films to this event: Joel Lamangan’s Hubog, which was my choice for Best Picture in the Metro Manila Film Festival last year and Gil Portes’ Munting Tinig, which I have yet to see, and which is touted as a top contender in next year’s awards race.

Heading the Philippine delegation to Toronto are Lamangan, Portes and Alessandra de Rossi who stars in both films.

At first, Alessandra didn’t want to go to Toronto because she couldn’t find anyone to chaperone her. She couldn’t bring her mother with her because Mrs. De Rossi is in Italy. Sister Assunta was out of the question because they are still feuding. (Assunta was also supposed to fly to Toronto – being the star of Hubog – but chose to stay behind and work on her showbiz commitments.)

Alessandra was hoping her Munting Tinig co-star Princess Punzalan could accompany her to Toronto (they became very close while working in Biglang-Sibol), but Princess didn’t have enough time to apply for a visa to Canada. As an Italian citizen, Alessandra didn’t need a visa to go to Canada.

Finally, it was Munting Tinig music director Joy Marfil who ended up as Alessandra’s chaperone. Alessanda already had bonded with Joy since it was the latter who taught her how to play the flute in Munting Tinig.

Once in Toronto, Alessandra was pleased with her decision to fly there. Although Hubog and Munting Tinig were not competing, the people involved in the two films – particularly Alessandra, Portes and Lamangan – were still praised no end for their works. Tickets to the screenings of the two films, to begin with, were sold-out. They were even given a standing ovation after the screenings.

Back here at home, the producers of Hubog (Regal Films) were initially worried about the box-office performance of the film in Toronto because it is already available there in DVD under the title Woman’s Carves. (For the festival, it was called Wretched Lives.) To their surprise, people still flocked to see it on the big screen.

But the great news is the two films were bought by foreign distributors during the Toronto Film Festival. The TV rights to Munting Tinig was bought by a Japanese TV network, but I’m not sure which foreign distributor bought the rights to Hubog.

To serve as proof of the success of both Hubog and Munting Tinig in the Toronto Film Festival, I am reprinting below the headline news report (which came with a banner news photo) that appeared in the Toronto Filmfest’s official paper, The Festival Daily, last Sept. 12, the height of the festival.

Small Voices and Wretched Lives may sound like a couple of long-lost Terence Davies films, but they are, in fact, the titles of two remarkable Filipino movies that are having their North American premieres at this year’s Festival.

The directors of the two films, Gil M. Portes and Joel Lamangan, look to be in fine humor, joining the remarkable star of both Small Voices and Wretched Lives, Alessandra de Rossi at a post-screening bash at Ba ba lu’u in Yorkville. Both filmmakers are Festival veterans: they were in Toronto in 2002 for the premieres of Lamangan’s Deathrow and Portes’s Markova (Comfort Gay).

In tone and style, the two films couldn’t be more distinct. Small Voices is a tender but tough-minded tale of a young teacher who arrives at a provincial school optimistic and defiantly attempting to help her students rise above the poverty and political violence that surrounds them. Wretched Lives is about a different set of dangerous minds: a poor and embattled pair of sisters, and the criminal and perverse men that surround them. It’s a harsh, dehumanizing world that’s rendered with uncommon grace and nuance.