Biggest original Filipino musical to pay tribute to nannies

MANILA, Philippines - Award-winning director Chito Roño is putting the final touches on what is dubbed as the biggest original Filipino musical to pay tribute to Filipino nannies abroad.

Director Lupita Kashiwahara, President Arroyo’s image consultant, said the landmark film “Emir” will premiere on June 7. The film is Mrs. Arroyo’s latest tribute to overseas Filipino workers, she added.

Kashiwahara said the idea for a movie about OFWs came out after a lunch in the Persian Gulf Kingdom of Bahrain hosted by Prime Minister Prince Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa in February last year.

At the table was the King’s 16-year-old grandson, Sheik Khalifa Bin Ali Al Khalifa, who amazed his Filipino guests by speaking Tagalog.

“To say the President and the Philippine delegation were impressed would be an understatement,” she said.

Kashiwahara said the King’s grandson told visitors he learned Tagalog and Ilocano from his nanny.

“That night, President Arroyo remarked, ‘Why don’t we make a movie about the influence of yayas?’” she said.

It can be ‘the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world,’ so Emir was born.

 “With that germ of an idea, award winning director Chito S. Roño decided to turn it into a musical on a scale never before seen in Philippine movie history.”

Kashiwahara said Roño gathered talents from the film, TV, theater and music industries.

“It is a landmark movie that raises the bar for Philippine filmmaking. It would not have been possible without the support of President Arroyo,” she said.

Emir is a production of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), in association with the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), and supported by the Office of the President-President’s Social Fund.

Mrs. Arroyo is donating the proceeds of the movie to a new film fund of the FDCP that should fuel the production of even more quality films.

The new film fund will have more liberal terms in the grant of financial assistance to movie producers and hopefully, will encourage the production of better films and assure sustainable growth for the film industry for years to come, Kashiwahara said.