Direk Maryo J. must be smiling from Up There

Curtain-raisers:

• What was the controversial actor thinking? A few years back, he bought a basketful of balut but instead of eating one or all of them, what he did was throw the balut one by one at the walls of a southern hotel where he was billeted. Did he think that he was playing some kind of a pingpong-against-the-wall game? The Funfare DPA didn’t say if there were penoy in the basket.

• A world-renowned Filipino artist swears that a popular TV/movie actress (wife of a celebrity in his own field) has undergone a facial “overhauling.” The artist carries in his wallet “before and after” photos of the actress, and noted that the “after” photo shows how very much improved she is. I told him that it’s nothing new. A good percentage of showbiz folks have undergone the same procedure. Name some? Watch them up close on TV and you will know who they are.

• An actor got the surprise of his life when he worked with a very talented/awarded ’60s actress who is active up to now. During the script reading, the actress heard what the actor’s surname was and her eyes lit up. “Are you related to_____?” she asked him. “Yes,” the actor answered, “he’s my father.” The actress smiled and said, “I experienced everything with him and I mean everything, including losing my, well, alam mo kung ano, hahaha!!!” Embarrassed, the actor covered his face with the script.

* * *

It’s a good thing that Dr. Milagros Ong-How, executive vice president of Universal Harvester, Inc. and chief advocate of the ToFarm Film Festival, acknowledged direk Maryo J. delos Reyes before the announcement of the seven lucky entries during a recent presscon. It was Maryo J. who spearheaded the filmfest which has produced brilliant entries that glorify the farmers.

“He must be smiling down at us now,” noted Dr. How before the showing of a video-tribute to Maryo J. “I’m sure he’s happy for us where he is now.”

Dr. How revealed that more than 119 submitted entries but only seven had to be chosen.

“It doesn’t mean that the others were not good,” she explained, “they just needed a few improvements and maybe they can qualify in the next ToFarm filmfest.”

The final seven are:

• 1957, historical drama, written and directed by Hubert Tibi. A group of farmers in Bicol are at the mercy of Don Pepe, a strict landlord. Twenty-year-old Lucio, son of a former member of the Hukbalahap, pins hopes on the arrival of President Ramon Magsaysay in their area, for genuine land reform to take place. We know what happened in 1957…

• Alimuom, science fiction, written and directed by Keith Sicat, a futuristic Philippines with specific sections of the country under individual bio-domes. The OFWs are actually Outerspace Filipino Workers and the song Bahay-Kubo is a distant memory that makes a young boy ask: “Ano ang singkamas?”

• Fasang, period romance, written by Charlson Ong, based on the classic Philippine short story Tanabata’s Wife, set in the 1920s, to also feature a Japanese actor. Tanabata-San is a successful Japanese immigrant farmer in La Trinidad Valley in Baguio, where the Japanese have been known to pioneer the planting of salad greens. Middle-aged and lonely, he hires a young feisty Bontoc woman, Fasang, as farmhand, and falls in love with her. They get married and have a son, but Fasang is attracted to the city lights of the Baguio that is now taking shape, and to someone else.

• Isang Kuwento ng Gubat (The Leonard Co Story), a biopic, written by Rosalie Matilac, directed by Ellen Ongkeko-Marfil, Rosalie Matilac and Nilo Paz. This is a biopic and homage to the great Filipino botanist slain together with a guide and forest ranger in the forest of Kanangga, Leyte; government troops claimed they were caught in a crossfire between the military and the NPA, but two of the survivors said there was no gunfight and that they were apparently mistaken to be NPAs.

• Lola Igna, a cultural drama written and directed by Eduardo Roy, Jr., set in Sagada. Lola Igna is 115 years old, will she get to be the Guinness Book of Records’ oldest living person and become a tourist attraction to benefit the farming community close to the cliff of the hanging coffins? What will her possible winning or losing do to the warring factions of her immediate family?

• Mga Anak ng Kamote, a futuristic drama written by John Carlo Pacala; directed by Carlo Catu; set in the Philippines, 2052, when the planting of kamote has been outlawed and those caught planting and selling kamote is put in jail, no thanks to the Kamote Planting Regulation Act.

• Sol Searching, is a dark comedy written and directed by Roman Perez Jr. Teacher Sol is dead and cannot be buried because there are no funds. How will the community come forward to put her to rest, this strict and no-nonsense teacher of grade school students and farmers who need to be taught scientific farming methods?

(E-mail reactions at [email protected]. For more updates, photos and videos, visit www.philstar.com/funfare or follow me on Instagram @therealrickylo.)