Voices from home

What a journey it has been. After over a year of theatrical and film festival exhibitions around the world, the same creative team that brought you the multi-awarded Small Voices (Mga Munting Tinig) is about to embark on another exciting, albeit challenging, voyage with its official Metro Manila Film Festival entry, Homecoming.

Early this year, at the height of the worldwide epidemic scare, three words came to my mind – SARS, OFW, and Homecoming. Armed only with these words, director Gil M. Portes set up a meeting with prospective investors, convincing them to produce a no-sex, no-violence, no-superstar film about an issue currently affecting the entire world. A resourceful independent found our four courageous and visionary producers–Dobbin Tan, Carlo Ma. Fernandez, John Alonte, and Eric Manlunas. They were all immediately convinced that this project has to be made.

In a month’s time, Adolf B. Alix, direk Gil, and this co-writer came up with several versions of the story treatment and the screenplay. From the beginning, one thing was sure: we wanted our Small Voices star Alessandra de Rossi in the cast. Several topnotch actresses were considered for the other lead role in the film.

In May of this year, during the Urian Awards night ceremonies (wherein Small Voices tied with Dekada ’70 for Best Picture), we saw Elizabeth Oropesa and Alessandra together onstage. We all looked at each other and thought of the same brilliant idea – we found our perfect mother-daughter team to lead the cast of Homecoming.

The rest of the supporting roles easily fit into the mold of some of our most reliable thespians — Bembol Roco, Dexter Doria, Irma Adlawan, Richard Quan, Paolo Rivero, James Blanco, and Raquel Villavicencio. Award-winning young actors Lester Llansang and Bryan Homecillo co-star as Alessandra’s brothers. Another promising performer, Christopher Malonzo, is introduced in Homecoming.

After four weeks of writing, 18 days of shooting, and two months of post-production at LVN studios in Manila and at the TITRA laboratories in Los Angeles, Homecoming is ready for exhibition to the public. It will be shown at the 2003 Metro filmfest beginning Dec. 25.

This early, the movie is already creating a major buzz among film critics and the entertainment press. In fact, after our LA-based co-producer Ray Cuerdo successfully screened it for the major distribution executives at Sony Pictures in Los Angeles and for their counterparts here in the Philippines, they have unanimously agreed to distribute Homecoming under the banner of Columbia Tri-Star Pictures.

As we tell our family and friends within the movie industry about this project, the two most-frequently asked questions are: Who is going to watch this film? How are you going to compete against the giant studios and the star-studded movies that will be shown at this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival?

And our most-frequent answer to these questions is: In all honesty, we do not know. All we can assure you is that we are extremely proud of the film and we know that every Filipino will also be very proud of it. We trust that the moviegoing public will patronize all the quality films in the festival–be they produced by a major production company or by a small independent group of big dreamers like us.

Homecoming is a daring movie. It is a morality tale. It is a film that one reviewer says "…will make you cry…it will make you angry."

And if I may add, this is one small movie that will make you think–not only about yourselves, but about your family and your community. Most of all, it will make you wonder where this country of ours is headed to.

To quote an entertainment editor, "…it moved me to tears, then it moved me to think."

For each of us, Filipinos, our journeys begin and end in our own home, in our hometown, and in our home country.