Luke’s cultural homecoming

Filipino-Australian director, Luke Torrevillas, started April 7, his unique personal and professional pilgrimage, with the creation of a new documentary entitled "Homecoming." He is now in Sagada, up in the Cordilleras, the small Philippine highland village of his youth after living for 25 years in Australia. He is, he says, "seeking answers to the eternal question of ‘Who am I’?"

Increasingly feeling more and more distant from the place that he once called home, Luke has returned for the family celebration of his paternal grandmother’s 90th birthday.

Together with a small film crew from Down Under, he will document his personal search for identity through the eyes of his family, townsfolk, and other expatriates.

"The documentary is really seeking to explore issues felt by people the world over who have experienced cultural displacement," he says. "The themes we are exploring are very relevant to many people in Australia who have cultural roots across the sphere, and due to our increasingly globalized way of life, no longer understand who they are.

"Essentially, many people like me are in what I call a cultural crisis" a limbo land of being neither fully Australian nor fully Filipino.

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If you’re wondering how Luke and I are related, well, yes, he is my nephew. He is the younger of two sons of my older brother, Dr. Nell Torrevillas, of Gingoog City, and Nelly Abeya of Sagada. The couple and their then small kids Ike, Luke and daughters Shelley and Jessel, moved to Australia 25 years ago, settling down in Blacktown, NSW, about an hour by train away from Sydney.

Luke, a friendly and charming chap, has become so Australian, that he spells the word Filipino as Philippino.

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"I am regularly haunted by the ‘spirit’ of my mountainous home, but as yet have not found a constructive way to reintegrate my cultural heritage into my day-to-day life," says Luke.

"In part, I guess that I am hoping that the process of making this film will provide me with some answers.?

No stranger to filmmaking, Luke has worked on many short and feature-length film as well as TVC’s and music film clips. This is his first time, however, to be on the other side of the camera. Following in the footsteps of international directors, Luke welcomes the challenge of intertwining both the professional and personal.

With a grueling two-week shoot schedule planned, starting at the Sydney International Airport. He will certainly have occasion to forget the cameras that travel with him. And with multi-award-winning cinematographer Mark Lapwood, director of photography for the critically acclaimed Indian film, Maya, we can be assured the results will be both stunning and emotional.

Luke says: Homecoming promises to be a film to look out for.

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Ever heard of Malabrigo, Lobo, Batangas? We had not, until a couple of months ago, when friends Mel and Diane Morales, invited us to their beach house there. What a joyous experience our weekend there was. There was the ocean before us, crystal clear and blue, and miles away was the sight of green mountains. The couple’s wooden house, with a balcony around the it, was fresh-wind-swept, which lulled us to sleep most of the time. And for two days, we ate only fish, caught by Mel and his barangay fishermen friends who would sail out to the sea even before the crack of dawn, staying there nearly the whole day, and coming back to the house with a load of all sorts of fish. In fact Mel, a former executive of College Assurance Plan, gifts his friends in Manila with platters of his now famous kinilaw na tanguige.

Mel acquired the 500 sq.m. property by exchanging his motorized banca for it. Since then, he and Diane and their three children and their friends, have become regular fixtures of the coastal barangay of Malabrigo, Lobo in Batangas, some three hours by car away from Manila. The voting population there is about 1,500, whose source of income is derived from fishing and farming.

In their effort "to give back to Malabrigo the joy that we derive from its pleasures," Mel and Diane helped support a summer program starting in April 2001 which involves the barangay council and the youth.

This program is the Malabrigo Lago-Laro program, an annual sports competition for boys and girls between 8 and 15 years old, its objective to keep the youth healthy in body, mind and spirit through sports. The annual competition coincides with the celebration of the barangay fiesta.

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The program was started with the initiative of the local officials led by Barangay Captain Manuel Petallo and his council members. The Friends of Malabrigo, frequen visitors of the place (actually Mel’s and Diane’s friends). put up the initial funding to launch the first Malabrigo Kiddie Boat Regatta. Thirty-one boys between eight to 15 years participated in the race.

The program has now expanded, to include a swimming competition for girls, with the assistance of Akiko Thomson, a veteran Olympic swimmer. Akiko teaches the girls basic swimming lessons.

This girls’ competitions and the boys’ Kiddie Board Regatta will be held April 25, the day before the barangay fiesta. The regatta utilizes small boats powered by oars on a solo or mixed double categories. The swimming competition on the other hand, engages the girls in a free style race.

College Assurance Plan sponsors the annual competitions. This weekend, Channel 23’s Game Plan Team is covering the swimming clinic for girls in preparation for the April 25 competitions.

People who would like to donate cash or kind to the competitions may contact. Chairman Petallo or Melchor S. Morales, coordinator, at 824-65-46, or e-mail melchormorales@hotmail.com.

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My e-mail address: dominimt2000@yahoo.com