Digital is the way to go

Boots Anson-Roa may be earning more from making mainstream films, like Regal Films’ Mano Po 5, where she is one of the stars. But she prefers to make lower-budget digital films like Rekados, one of the films to be shown at the Second Cinema One Originals Digital Movie Festival on Nov. 24 to 26 at the Indie Sine Theater, Robinsons Galleria (Cinema 8).

Mark Gil may have won awards for many a mainstream movie. But settling for a lower-paying role in Raket ni Nanay another digital film in the Cinema One Originals Digital Movie Festival, is not beneath him.

Eula Valdez plays someone who cooks to please her customers and the man she desires in Rekados. Another acclaimed actress, Chin-Chin Gutierrez, trips the light fantastic in the digi film Pandanggo.

And Sarsi Emmanuel is making a comeback as Mark’s co-star in Raket ni Nanay.

What gives? Why have these name stars agreed to do a project at much less their usual huge talent fees? Are times so hard they have to resort to this?

Yes, times are hard. But there’s more to it than that. These stars have a deeper, nobler reason for working for less pay.

"Mainstream films are lucrative," admits Mark. But sometimes, money matters become academic when you’re offered exciting roles.

In Raket ni Nanay, for instance, he plays an eccentric painter who comes face-to-face with a former live-in partner (Sarsi) in a nude painting session.

It’s a role Mark can’t, for the life of him, refuse.

Boots, on the other hand, can’t say no when she read the script of the tragic comedy Rekados.

"It shows us how cooking imitates life," she explains. So Boots just had to squeeze in shooting the film where she plays the family matriarch whose cooking skills keep the brood alive.

Eula has a valid reason for getting into the Rekados bandwagon.

"Most of my roles cast me as a martyr, forever crying and crying. The digi film lets me play a role I don’t normally get. And, after 26 years in the business, that’s more important to me," she says.

All of them agree the filmmakers behind the seven competing digi films are the future of local cinema. So they need all the help they can get.

"I see direk Lino Brocka’s idealism in them," observes Boots, who first met the late director in the UP campus.

She even relates a memorable conversation she had with Brocka.

"Lino told me people have been asking him why he still did komiks material when he’s already way up there – a UP graduate and a theater veteran at that," recalls Boots.

The director’s instant reply has stuck in her mind to this day.

"He said he was doing that to connect with the audience. If he gives his all but no one is there to watch, all his efforts will be useless. So developing the audience is important. Then, he will make his move," Boots adds.

Developing the audience is exactly what Cinema One Channel 56 is doing. It has chosen seven digital films with seven different themes and has given it a budget of P700,000 each. The result is a merry mix of films with adventure, love, family, laughter and others as themes.

They are:

• Raket ni Nanay, about a mother trying to survive financially by posing for an obsessed painter;

• Seroks, a psychological drama about a mysterious woman (Juliana Palermo) who moves to a room above a Xerox shop, generating a series of duplicating events;

• Pandanggo, a trilogy of three women’s frustrations, aspirations and desires, all boiling down to them having happy family life;

• Rekados, about three generations of women (Boots, Eula and Meryll Soriano) whose personalities and priorities vary like the flavors of the dishes they cook;

• Metlogs, about the adventures of three young men (Paolo Ballesteros, Marky Lopez and Tyrone Perez) who try their luck in the city to fulfill their dream of a fabulous life;

• Huling Balyan ng Buhi, about a priestess whose miraculous conception challenges her tribe’s heritage and religion; and

• Rome and Juliet, the romantic journey and soul making of two straight women (Andrea del Rosario and Mylene Dizon) who plunge into forbidden love.

These films, notes Mark Gil, "tell us that the craft is still alive." And it thrills him to know that it also lets veterans like him to work with young blood and learn from them the way they learn from him.

The young digital filmmakers are the crème dela crème in their field. Ed Lejano of Seroks, for instance, has a certificate in film from New York University, with a Gawad CCP Award to his name. Rome and Juliet’s Connie S.A. Macatuno won honors from the Catholic Mass Media Awards and the NU Rock Awards and various nominations.

Rekados’ Paolo Herras is an award-winning scriptwriter taking up his master’s degree at Philippine Studies at UP Diliman. Raket ni Nanay’s Lawrence Anthony Fajardo has worked with Peque Gallaga in a documentary and has done a 30-minute docu called Australian Aid.

All of them will compete for the Grand Jury Prize of P200,000 and the Audience Award when the festival wraps up on Nov. 26. Awards night is on Nov. 26, 5 p.m. at Greenhills Teatrino, hosted by Piolo Pascual and Bianca Gonzalez.

Whoever wins is anybody’s guess. But one thing’s sure. The ultimate winner is local cinema and the Filipino audience it seeks to please.