Posted by Nina Dandan at the eCulturalCenter yahoogroup:

THE FILMS:

Cinemanila International Film Festival awardee Khavn dela Cruz’s “Institusyon ng Makata” stars Marvin Agustin as Tony de Guzman, current resident at the Institute of Poets, who is one pissed-off, walking timebomb. Short of fuse, this shrewd citizen of the Philippine ghetto sets his sights on foreign classmate Steve Banners, a pompous self-righteous dude with delusions of America's grandeur at the expense of Third World inequity. Khavn received the Digital Lokal Jury Prize for “Squatterpunk” at the 8th Cinemanila International Film Festival (CIFF).

“The Ballad of Mimiong’s Minion” earned director Jobin Ballesteros the 2006 Ishmael Bernal Award for Young Cinema at the 8th CIFF. Jaime, a folk singer, has just been kicked out of the job as the weekly evening entertainment of a long-standing music bar. Without a job and a place to stay, he seeks refuge in the town plaza, where, through irreconcilable circumstances, he meets Mimiong, a blind street musician. This is where their ballad begins.

The 2004 Ishmael Bernal Awardee for Young Cinema (CIFF) for his short film “Bakasyon,” Raya Martin’s “Long Live Philippine Cinema” premiered at the 2007 International Film Festival of Rotterdam. A burlesque, harsh satire about the mistress of Philippine film production, the Chinese-Filipino producer Mother Lily. She is hated and feared, but nobody can get round her. Fortunately this young filmmaker has thought up an adequate solution to keep Philippine cinema alive. Mother Lily is not a metaphorical invention. She really exists - for now.

Janus Victoria’s “Hopia Express” won the Best Short Film at the 2006 Cinemanila International Film Festival. It tells the story of Kinky, a recent Chinese immigrant living in Manila’s neon-lit Chinatown who falls for a stranger who frequents the yam cake store where she works. Unable to speak his language, Kinky relies on his schedule and the cake he loves to buy to forge a friendship.

“Salat” won Best Short Film and simultaneously earned John Torres the Ishmael Bernal Award for Young Cinema at the 2005 Cinemanila International Film Festival. The film is composed of several vignettes that are like snap-shots of urban life, juxtaposed once again with images of love, friendship and everyday life. In The Last Sherbet, street kids savour ice cream. Lunar Play is a short elegy for Portuguese footballer Miklos Feher (1979-2004), while Ellipsis, Kulob and Lunar Punch are a triptych in which the narrator muses on hope and the persistence of the spirit to want to carry on, against the background of a relationship that has quietly ended.

Lababo (Kitchen-Sink Drama), which was also screened at the 8th Cinemanila Film Festival was co-directed by Seymour Barros Sanchez and Ginalyn Dulla. An initial co-production of Red Room Productions and the University of Makati Film Society, it covers significant dates concerning the Philippines' relationship with the United States. Parallel to these events are the lives of two Filipinas (Nerissa Icot and Virnie Tolentino) who fall for the same American soldier (Stephen Patrick Moore).

Raya Martin’s “Long Live Philippine Cinema” will make its Philippine premiere at 9:30 pm on February 17, Saturday, at the UP Sunken Garden. All the other films will run from 5:30 to 6:45 pm.

For more information, contact 0917-3705454 or email banned_movies@yahoo.com .