Cesar takes Filipino bio flicks to new level

MANILA, Philippines - If you think Alfredo Lim: The Untold Story is just another gratuitous political bio flick, think again.

Cesar Montano, one of the country’s most gifted filmmakers, directs and acts in the most recent adaptation of the life story of Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim. The big-budgeted flick boasts of a host of talented actors in Philippine cinema today, including Alessandra de Rossi, Nonie Buencamino, Tirso Cruz III, Marc Abaya, Spanky Manikan, Gina Pareño and Gloria Romero.

Cesar Montano with Manila City Mayor Alfredo Lim

Before he ever became a public figure, Fred Lim led a colorful, if difficult life — abandoned by his mother as a toddler, raised in an orphanage and reunited with his grandparents some years later. He was a shy but hardworking student. Lim finished accountancy and later became a lawyer in 1963, and served a decorated career as a Manila police officer long before he ever became a public figure.

The film chronicles those early years, and more — carefully selected scenes from those years far from the public radar, but brimming with drama, action and life.

“Oftentimes, when they make this kind of movie, the director and scriptwriter would cook up scenes to make the action portions more exciting,” says Montano. “But not in this case. If we included everything about Mayor Lim, we could do an endless teleserye. His life story is very colorful.”

The film is more than just an action movie, and neither it is textbook melodrama. It is an exposition and examination of a complex man, weathering challenges both internal and external and emerging victorious — a showcase of Filipino craftsmanship that is world-class.

Montano and the rest of the team behind Lim are eyeing screenings in several international film festivals.

Abroad, the film will carry the title Turning Cradle referring to the basket-like structure found at the gates of orphanages where mothers, too ashamed to show their faces, would abandon their babies — the cradle where Lim’s own mother left him at the tender age of two.

Alfredo Lim: The Untold Story is now showing in theaters nationwide.