MANILA, Philippines - Bahay Bata (Baby Factory), the first feature film of Eduardo Roy Jr., won another award last week in Spain. The Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival bestowed the Jose Rivero Award for New Best Director to Roy which came with a 12,500 Euros cash endowment.
This is the second international award for Roy this month after winning the Grand Jury Award at the Deauville Asia Film Festival in France for the same movie.
Roy together with executive producer Almond Derla presented the film on its premiere screening but Roy had to leave for the Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum last March 19 for his script Lola Igna which was selected as one of the 35 projects this year.
The festival requested for Roy’s acceptance speech on video. Here is the video recorded speech:
“Good evening. I regret that I cannot receive the award personally as I had to fly to Hong Kong for the film financing forum for my next film.
“I would like to thank the jury for recognizing my work on my small but personal film. I am very grateful to Mr. Luis Miranda for programming it for Las Palmas.
“I am sharing this award with my cast, crew, the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival and lastly, to all the mothers, doctors, nurses and staff of the Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila for all their support and cooperation when we made this wonderful film. Thank you very much.”
Bahay Bata was an official selection of the new breed section in last year’s Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival. It was co-written by Roy and Jerome Zamora and stars 2011 Young Critics Circle Best Performer Diana Zubiri, Myles Kanapi, Peewee O’Hara, Jana Tiangco, Geoffrey Javier and Sue Prado.
Incidentally, with much regret, Roy and myself as producer have officially withdrawn Lola Igna from the new breed section of Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival in July. In one of their meetings at HAF, a major European distributor has expressed interest on the material.
The distributor advised that with this kind of script, which he said is one of the most commercially appealing among HAF projects this year, there should be enough time to prepare.
He requested for a copy of the final script in English. We assured him that we will be in touch with him and will keep him posted on the development of Roy’s second feature film.