Tuesday, August 28, 2007 Women on top: Women directors get 'banned'
WOMEN on top, women who rock!
Gear up for yet another exciting Banned Movies Pilipinas (BMP) event as women filmmakers take center stage on Friday at 8 p.m. onwards at Freedom Bar in Anonas, Quezon City. BMP's exciting finish to the month of August will showcase the multi-talented and award-winning directors Pamela Miras, Geraldine Flores and Janus Victoria.
Banned Movies Pilipinas (BMP) is an events and production group that opens up alternative venues for independent cinema and music through its monthly events. A typical Banned event headlines a filmmaker or group of filmmakers, their bands, and musical acts outside of the mainstream circuit.
BMP has previously featured filmmakers John Torres, Khavn dela Cruz, Raya Martin, Jobin Ballesteros, Janus Victoria, Seymour Barros Sanchez and Rox Lee.
BMP has also premiered no less than three shorts and a feature length film in its six-month run thus far. BMP has also headlined more than 30 indie bands and performance artists, whether rock 'n' roll, punk, reggae and R and B.
"Women on Top: Women Directors Get Banned!" is BMP's seventh installment and pays homage to the fearless women of independent cinema whose body of work rightfully put them "on top" of the indie world.
Geraldine Borja Flores is a film graduate of the University of the Philippines. Early on, her undergraduate thesis film "Juan Orasan" is a Gawad CCP award-winning short film, nominated at the Gawad Urian awards and exhibited internationally.
She is also part of Sinekalye (Street Cinema), a group of independent filmmakers, visual artists and musicians who bring Filipino films and music out into the streets in the Philippines and to the rest of the world, aiming to promote art appreciation in the country and Filipino art worldwide.
Pamela Miras graduated with a film degree at the University of the Philippines' College of Mass Communications in 1999. Her undergraduate thesis "Reyna ng Kadiliman" (1999) not only gained recognition as Best Thesis and the Gawad Chancellor award for Best Visual Art Creation within her alma mater, the film reaped more distinctions the following year.
"Reyna" won 1st Prize, Short Feature category at the 13th Gawad CCP Awards and the 23rd Gawad Urian Award for Best Film, Short Feature Category. She went on to direct "Bongga: Best in Wedding Dress" in 2001. Her first digital feature "Blood Bank" (2004) won 2005 Best Philippine Short Film at the MOV digital film festival and Best Screenplay in the Short Film Category at the 2005 Cinemalaya Digital Film Festival, and exhibited internationally.
Janus Victoria graduated from the Ateneo de Manila University in 2003. She attended the Asian Film Academy under the Pusan International Film Festival in South Korea in 2005. Her short film "Hopia Express" was awarded Best Short Film at the 2006 Cinemanila International Film Festival. Her latest film "Tres Pas" was born out of the projects she made in the directing class of the 2007 Negros Summer Workshop.
Exciting and eclectic performances from indie bands Driver Down, Blister, 5th Street, Ignify, Bored of Trustees, Tabloid Lite, Linch XII, Lem's Guitar, Vinyard and Five Feet Adjustment are just some of the rockin' performances for the night.
Dying to know more? Visit www.bannedmoviespil ipinas.com, www.bannedmovies.multiply.com or email banned_movies@ yahoo.com for inquiries.
Check out photos, testimonials, and video clips on the BMP website and multiply to catch riveting performances from past events. Join banned_movies_ pilipinas@ yahoogroups. com so you never miss another BMP event again. You can also text 0917-3705454 or 0920-9226261 for more information. It's never too late to get Banned!
The films:
Blood Bank (Pamela Miras)
A patient in need of blood transfusion, a worker in the blood bank, and a man who sells his blood... The connections between these three lives are soon strained with their respective wants going against their dependency on each other. But one day, one of them discovers something that will eventually break these ties.
Bonnga: Best in Wedding Dress (Pamela Miras)
Helen is about to marry her European fiancé. The wedding turns into a fiasco when the designer delivers the gown two hours late and the wedding car gets involved in an accident. Her brother ends up wearing the gown.
Reyna ng Kadiliman (Pamela Miras)
A young girl, Neneng, gets her first period, and tries to hide her coming of age from her other peers in a haunted boarding house. She takes refuge in the bathroom, where she encounters the ghost of her own mother who had hung herself.
Juan Orasan (Geraldine Flores)
This is the story of an employee who hates the bundy clock in his office because he feels it is controlling his life.
Hopia Express (Janus Victoria)
Kinky, a recent Chinese immigrant living in Manila's neon-lit Chinatown 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. One day, he doesn't show up when she expects him to.
Tres Pas (Janus Victoria)
The film examines the inner lives of three human beings in a trio of enigmatic, fragmentary video-poems. A young man nurtures an exquisite longing for a lost love, while another loses himself in a chemical dream state, and a young woman considers the consequences of an ill-timed arrival. By turns melancholy, lyrical, whimsical, and painful, these episodes are also reflections on the malleability of time, which can stretch out excruciatingly at moments of sadness, inactivity, or indecision. (Press release)
