Red's

At long last, a Filipino film has won -- a the current Cannes Film Festival, no less!

The entry, Raymond Red's short film Anino, is the first Filipino film ever to have won in that prestigious festival. Today, the "short film" category. Tomorrow, who knows, it could be for a full-length film (maybe by Red also?).

Here's a full report on Red's Cannes victory from Funfare's New York correspondent Ana Marie Datuin (producer of Red's first full-length film, Sakay, which starred Ana Marie's brother, Julio Diaz);

In the midst of a ritzy and glamorous crowd at yesterday's closing ceremonies of the Cannes Film Festival, where in attendance were world-renowed actors such as Catherine Deneuve, Jeremy Irons, Joaquin Phoenix, James Caan and more, stood proud the young Filipino filmmaker Raymond Red who was called onstage to receive the most coveted award of the Festival, the Palme d'Or Award for short films.

Red bested nine other short films out of the original 517 entries to the Short Film category. The Palme d'Or Award in the Feature Film category went to Dancer in the Dark by Lars Von Trier. The film also bagged the Best Female Performance for rock singer Bjork' while Tony Leung Chiu-Wai of In the Mood for Love received the Best Male Performance.

Red's winning entry, Anino, starred Eddie Garcia, Ronnie Lazaro and John Arcilla. The nine-minute film explores the widening gap between the rich, powerful class and the underdog, the lower class. Members of the jury were: Belgian Director Luc Dardenne, who won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Festival in 1999; Italian Director Francesca Comencini, French Director Claire Denis; Mauritian Director Abdherramane Sissako; and American actress Mira Sorvino, whose film she produced was also part of this year's Un Certain Regard selection.

In his acceptance speech, Red remembered his fellow "struggling Filipino filmmakers" with whom, he said, he shared his award. The film Anino, according to a statement made earlier by Red, was borne out of his frustration over not making films over the past seven years. Despite the critical success of his first commercial film Sakay, which debuted at the 1993 Manila Film Festival and has won that year's Gatpuno Antonio Villegas and the Lingap ng Inang Maynila awards, Red was ignored by major local film studios.

Born in Manila in 1965, Red had his first serious studies in the arts at the Philippine High School for the Arts. He went on to study painting at the College of Fine Arts of the University of Philippines. He later earned a scholarship at the University's Film Center where he made his first super-88mm films. He continued studying filmmaking at the Mowelfund Film Institute.

Since then, he has made numerous independent short films, all of which have won awards and have been screened at major film festivals and institutions around Asia, Europe and North America.

In 1990, he was invited as the first Filipino for the Berlin Artist-in-residence program of the German Academic Exchange Institute. At the same time Z.D.F. (The Second German Television) granted him funding for Bayani, his first full-length feature film about the Filipino rebellion of 1896. Bayani had its world premiere at the Forum of Young Cinema, Berlin International Film Festival in February of 1992. It was shown on German Television the following month. It was in 1993 when Red finished his much- acclaimed second feature film Sakay for Alpha Omega Productions. It is the story of Macario Sakay, the last Filipino revolutionary who held out against the Americans at the turn of the century. Red also received the Hubert Bals Award in the 1993 Rotterdam Film Festival for developing his new feature film in progress, Makapili.