Bahay Bata wins in France fest

MANILA, Philippines - Eduardo Roy Jr.’s Bahay Bata (Baby Factory) won the Jury Prize at the recently-concluded Deauville Asian Film Festival in France held from March 7 to 11. It was the first Filipino film to compete for the award and Roy’s first feature film.

Jury president Elia Suleiman presented the trophy to direk Eduardo and executive producer Almond Derla who also attended the festival. Iran’s Mourning by Morteza Farshbaf won the Grand Prix.

Last year, the film won a special mention in Vancouver and competed at the Marrakech International Film Festival in Morocco.

From Deauville, Bahay Bata will compete at the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival in Spain from March 16 to 24.

Bahay Bata will vie for the Grand Prix award in Deauville and the Golden Lady Harimaguada award in Las Palma. The award was previously won by Auraeus Solito’s Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros in 2006 and Brillante Mendoza’s Lola in 2010.

Incidentally, Bahay Bata was nominated in four categories at the Young Critics Circle and won Best Performer award for Diana Zubiri.

Bahay Bata was co-written by Roy and Jerome Zamora and also stars Sue Prado, Mailes Kanapi, Peewee O’Hara and Jeoffrey Javier. It was an official selection in last year’s Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival. 

From Europe, Bahay Bata will be screened at the Cleveland International Film Festival in Ohio and the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival in California. It will also be shown at the second Southeast Asian Film Festival at the Singapore Art Museum.

Roy and myself as producer will also attend the Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum from March 19 to 24 with the film Lola Igna which is one of our projects this year. It is in the new breed category of the 2012 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival.

Here is the review of Robert Koehler of Bahay Bata which appeared on Variety:

The dismaying spectacle of a wildly overcrowded Manila maternity ward during Christmastime is pitched midway between docu and drama in Eduardo Roy Jr.’s confident first feature, “Baby Factory.” Western viewers will choose their own comparisons  “ER” meets Frederick Wiseman’s “Hospital,” anyone?  but Roy, a veteran of Filipino TV soaps, has found his voice in feature directing by imbuing sudser conventions with a strong underlying realism. Following a limited local mid-October release, major early-year and spring international fests should baby-sit.

Flashes of dramatized moments  one features a husband unable to bring milk into the clinic for his wife, whose breasts are dry  are initially sprinkled into an overall view of Manila’s primary maternity hospital, stuffed with too many expectant moms and too few overworked doctors, nurses and aides. On one hand, Roy and his nimble d.p. Ogi Sujatan (managing extraordinary images in the actual facility, with more or less existing lighting) observe the place as if it were exactly what the title suggests. On the other, they create enough space for personal stories to play out.

The most foregrounded of these belongs to hard-working nurse Sarah (vet thesp Diana Zubiri), who tries to go by the book with her duties while putting up as much as possible with imperious head nurse Cora (Pee Wee O’Hara). Sarah is torn between her loyalty to the hospital and its staff and her desire to work as a nurse in Canada; plus, she has her b.f. to deal with. The closest matters drift into melodrama (occurring) late into the action when Sarah has to make a fateful decision about her own unplanned pregnancy  a plot turn that makes its point all too bluntly.

This narrative equivalent of shifting from closeup to long shot is what guides Roy’s and Jerome Samora’s script, and they skillfully manage a balance between the two perspectives, while taking maximum advantage of the real-life situations in the camera’s view. Pro actors dominate the nurse characters, from Sue Prado’s Heidi and Joeffrey Javier’s flamboyant Froilan, but the moms  most in their teens  are generally the real deal, with the exception of Ronne Contreras as an expectant mom on leave from prison and under constant guard.

Zubiri finds subtle notes to express Sarah’s inner conflicts, and she has a satisfying final confrontation with O’Hara that’s pure audience fodder. Cast generally matches Zubiri’s not-so-broad, non-TV manner. Pic is intended to build popular support for proposed legislation that would make Philippine contraceptive laws more progressive. Tech support is clearly as hardworking as these nurses, and delivers the goods.