Tuesday, September 25, 2007 J Lim: Late bloomer of a scriptwriter By Raquel C. Bagnol
LIFE is unpredictable sometimes and for this 56-year-old Dabawenya who believes that when a door closes another one opens, one is never too old to learn and that advanced age is never a hindrance to start writing.
Smarting from the blow of separation from her husband a decade ago, Jeanne Lim, a Davao-bred lady who moved to Manila when she was in her early 20's, said she needed a diversion to keep her busy during the following months.
"I had plenty of time in my hands and I did not relish the thought of going to a lonely home to brood. Without meaning to, I stumbled into a script writing workshop and that triggered an innate talent for writing which I didn't know existed," Jeanne said.
From the kitchen to the screen
Jeanne never had any inkling that she would be joining the ranks of writers giving life to the movie industry. She took Home Economics in college and went into food business right after.
"I used to have a fast food at the Queen's Theatre along A. Bonifacio Street early in the 1970's, and I was very famous for my pancit luglug," Jeanne said.
When she moved to Manila, she still followed her inclination for the food industry but later shifted to handicrafts and novelty items business.
Jeanne wrote her first script in 1995 to join a scriptwriting contest held by the Film Development Foundation of the Philippines (FDFP). It was a love story inspired from the movies she watched but the script didn't make it. She was not discouraged though. When she heard that FDFP was holding a scriptwriting workshop for aspiring script writers, she signed up for the program and it proved as the jump-off point for her.
"I couldn't believe it...I can write pala!" she said.
Jeanne said that all her batch mates in the workshop appeared knowledgeable about the subject as they kept arguing with the instructors.
"It was a different matter with me because I started totally blank. It was an advantage for me because like a dry sponge, I absorbed everything that was thrown at us," she said. She said lecturers during the workshop included veterans like Eddie Romero and Ishmael Vernal.
For the final project, each student was required to write a full-length script and her efforts gave birth to the film "Tradisyon," which made it to the Top Ten in 1996.
Since then, Jeanne has won third place in the FDFP scriptwriting contest in 1999, became one of the finalists of the same contest in 1996 and 1997, and has won three times in the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature.
Last year, she took an excerpt from one of her full-length scripts and turned it into an 8-minute short film entitled "No Passport Needed" which was picked as one of the 10 shown in last year's Cinemalaya Film Festival.
Jeanne submitted a screenplay of "Gulong" to the Palanca awards but it didn't make it. She decided to turn it into a full-length play and it won second place in the Palanca in 2004. Then last year, the script made it to the top 10 in the Cinemalaya, a film festival now on its third year that aims to discover, encourage, and honor the cinematic works of Filipino filmmakers that boldly articulate and freely interpret the Filipino experience with fresh insight and artistic integrity.
"Gulong" is a moving story about friendship, love and life, about a couple separated by time who found themselves together again in the sunset of their lives. "This is a very nice film and I think arrangements are being made for it to be shown in various elementary and high schools in Davao City very soon," Jeanne said.
Gulong is told from the point-of-view of Apao, a smart, kindhearted boy whose quest for an old bicycle reveals the stuff he is made of. With him on this adventure are his insan Momoy and his bespren Tom-Tom.
"A plate of pancit canton inspired me to write the story," Jeanne said. She prepared a dish of pancit canton for her nieces and told them she put ear's rats on it. The kids were disgusted, not understanding that she meant mushrooms, the kind that needs to be soaked in water before it expands to resemble rat's ears.
From the innocence of the kid's expressions, a story idea was hatched which later gave birth to "Gulong."
"I write about life. When I started writing a decade ago, I felt that I had enough experience to make viewers relate to my stories," she added. Having no children of her own gave her time to observe other kids, her nieces for example, and learn from their innocence.
Jeanne's "Gulong" was among the 10 finalists from a total of 240 submitted screenplays of this year's Cinemalaya Film Festival and Competition. The other films were "Ligaw Liham" by Emilio "Jay" Abello VI, "Kadin (Goat)" by Adolfo Alix Jr., "Endo" by Jade Castro, "Still Life" by Katrina Flores, "2,999" by James Arnold B. Ladioray, "Sa Ilalim ng Sinungaling na Buwan" by Eduardo Lejano Jr., "Tribu" by Jim Libiran, "Tukso" by Dennis Marasigan, and "Pisay" by Auraeus Solito.
Jeanne said she and a partner are working on a script for the 2008 Cinemalaya to be held in July next year but with her physical condition, she said she doubts if they can make it before the deadline.
She added though that she got requests to submit a synopsis to a producer and if lucky, her film could be produced in Singapore.
A recent kidney transplant and failing eyesight did not hinder Jeanne from writing more scripts. Here is one writer who types her thoughts away on the keyboard but without seeing her work clearly.
"My vision is poor due to complications from diabetes. I can not see the letters on the keyboard or the monitor, so I just tap away and have somebody edit my work afterwards," she said.
Although Jeanne moved to Manila 23 years ago, she is still a true Dabawenya at heart, visiting Davao as often as she can. Jeanne was in Davao for a few days to join the 40th anniversary of her alma mater, the Davao Chinese High School Class of '67.
Valuable advice
Her golden advice to aspiring writers:
"Whenever you feel the urge to write, do so. Jot down everything because the more notes you have, the better your chances are of coming up with a story idea that may lead you to success. It's never too late to start, and you're never too old to start. Most important of all, don't let anybody tell you you're not good. Continue writing."
