Bravo, brilliant Brillante!

Congratulations to Brillante (Dante to friends) Mendoza for winning Best Director in this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Brillante made us and the whole country proud with his winning the Best Director Award. Brillante is not new to Cannes. He had an entry last year with Serbis which was both praised and whacked by cineastes and film critics alike. This time, Brillante, who is now known at Cannes as a controversial director whose work you either love or hate, won the Best Director award. He is one of the festival’s biggest winners along with Austrian director Michael Haneke who won the Palme d’Or for The White Ribbon.

As expected, Kinatay, Brillante’s winning film got mixed reactions from Cannes Festival watchers. Richard Corliss and Mary Corliss in Time Magazine wrote, “Kinatay, which depicts the torture, beheading and dismemberment of a prostitute, was almost universally reviled. In the critics’ poll for Film Francais magazine, this gutty little melodrama from Brillante Mendoza, the forlorn hope of Filipino cinema, was given the lowest rating of any official selection. But somebody must think Mendoza really is brilliant. “It’s not a dating film,” one jury member, playwright and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi, acknowledged at the press conference. “It’s not a film I would see again.” But he and other members said they were proud to have honored it. The jury that made room for Mendoza managed to ignore two men who are surely among the most daring, original and accomplished filmmakers in the competition, or anywhere else: Spain’s Pedro Almodovar, with his Penelope Cruz romantic drama Broken Embraces, and Palestine’s Elia Suleiman, whose endearing, deadpan The Time That Remains tells, in sour or poignant vignettes, the history of his family and his sundered country. Resnais, whose Wild Grass shows the legendary 86-year-old director at the top of his puckishly anarchic form, won a Life Achievement Award — which is Palme-speak for Thanks for Not Dying Quite Yet. After 60 history-making years in film, he deserved better, as did Suleiman and Almodovar. Guys, we love ya, you’re great, but you’re no Brillante Mendoza.”

A cinematic work in Brillante’s world is almost always contentious. But whatever the critics say, there is no doubt Mendoza stands alongside brilliant filmmakers Almodovar, Quentin Tarantino, Lars von Trier, Jane Campion who were previous winners of the Cannes Film Fest.

Brillante is not first Filipino to be honored at the prestigious festival. In 2000, Raymond Red won the Palme d’Or for short films for his short movie Anino. The less than 20-minute film bested other entries from all over the world. The same prize was won this year by 25-year-old Portuguese director Joao Salaviza for his movie Arena.

Brillante in his acceptance speech thanked Coco Martin who has been a suki in most of his films. Other winners in this year’s Cannes are: Grand Prix: Un Prophete, France, directed by Jacques Audiard; Jury Prize: Fish Tank, Great Britain, directed by Andrea Arnold, and Thirst, South Korea, directed by Park Chan-wook; Best Actor: Christoph Waltz, Austria, for Inglourious Basterds, directed by Quentin Tarantino; Best Actress: Charlotte Gainsbourg, France for Antichrist, directed by Lars von Trier; and Best Screenplay: Mei Fang, China for Spring Fever, directed by Lou Ye.

Bravo, brilliant Brillante!

Women of Pomellato

Pomellato jewels are celebrated all over Italy and the rest of the world for their remarkable artistry and craftsmanship. Hand-crafted by Milanese artisans, each Pomellato piece represents the passion, devotion, artistry, and brilliance of master craftsmen and each one is meant to be cherished, loved, experienced and enjoyed.

Pomellato was born in 1967. It made jewelry sexy. It created new shapes and settings, using the finest gold and gemstones. Pomellato also emphasized personality over formality, creating pieces that exude a strong, seductive, and exuberant attitude and character that bear close resemblance to the modern woman — strong, independent, successful, and stylish. Pomellato has gained a strong following of women who embody the spirit and beauty of Pomellato. Beautiful Pomellato women Catherine Deneuve, Geraldine Chaplin, Veruschka, Claudia Cardinale, Isabella Rossellini, Salma Hayek, Monica Bellucci, Azzedine Alaña, Sofia Loren, together with one of the most sought-after fashion and magazine photographers in the world, Michel Comte, helped raise money through an exhibit featuring the Pomellato Women who donated jewelry pieces in aid of building a Red Cross hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan.

 VANAFI, the Philippines’ premier jewelry chain and home to some of the world’s finest jewelry brands, continues this tradition by gathering eight legendary Pomellato women in an exhibit titled, Women of Pomellato. The exhibit featured stunning females led by VANAFI’s Vanessa Dulalia Figueroa along with Aivee Aguilar-Teo, Cristina Guy-Sison, Imelda Quibranza-Dimaporo, Marisol Teves-Ramirez, Monie Ybanez-Sy, Nena Marti-Elizalde and Penny Velasco-Laperal. Launched recently at Edsa Shangri-La Hotel, the exhibit also marked the opening of Vanafi’s flagship boutique at EDSA Shangri-La hotel.

For inquiries, call 637-7515 or 0917-8003333.