Will Shamaine score another win?

MANILA, Philippines - In last year’s Cinemalaya Filmfest, Shamaine Centenera Buencamino (wife of actor Noni Buencamino) won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Niño and repeated her victory by winning the same award for the same movie at the Ninth Golden Screen Awards and at the Sixth Asian Film Awards.

“It’s hard to top,” admitted Shamaine who topbills in REquieme!, also a collaboration of New York-based director Loy Arcenas and scriptwriter Rody Vera, the same tandem behind Niño which won many more awards in other competitions including Best Film and Best Screenplay (for Vera) in the 22nd Young Critics Circle Awards.

But you can never tell, considering that Shamaine has her own quiet way of pulling a surprise.

Her role in REquieme!, one of the entries in the 2012 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival, is just as challenging and award-worthy as the one in Niño.

Here’s how the story goes:

Circus hijinks surround the barangay of Sta. Maria in the midst of an international murder sensation. Swanie (Shamaine’s character), Sta. Maria’s barangay chair and a distant relative of the killer, tries to gain political points by staging a wake for the criminal-turned-celebrity. Meanwhile in faraway Manila, Joanna (played by Anthony Falcon), Swanie’s runaway gay son, navigates his way through labyrinthine bureaucracy to give a neighbor a proper burial. With these two unrelated deaths, estranged mother and son each buries the dead long shelved in their hearts. Amidst these unspoken family burials, the neighborhoods’ penchant for funeral fiestas, gossip and secrets, bizarre social events, and the sheer mix of scandal and inebriation complete the picture…the Pinoy way.

Aside from Shamaine, and Anthony, the movie also stars, among others, Rez Cortez, Lilia Cuntapay, Lou Veloso and Paul Jake Paule.