Go and relish these scenarios in Philippine movies soon.

On various days from 2 to 12 August, actor Marian Rivera will be at her most noble on the screen. And starting 14 August you can watch on screen the typically sweet Joshua Garcia at his most vindictive to his real life ex-girlfriend Julia Barreto. 

Life is variedly exciting in Pinoy movies this August. Let’s all hope the movies don’t turn aghast sooner or later.

With her entry Balota, Rivera headlines the 20th Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival whose 10 entries will be shown at the theaters of the Ayala Mall by the Bay on the days mentioned above. 

Ours is not the only report about the festival that calls Rivera the headliner. Many did it ahead of us. It is well-known that despite her not having won a major acting award, she and husband Dingdong Dantes are the stars of the country’s highest-grossing film Rewind, an entry in last year’s nationwide Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF). Rivera has unarguably become one of the country’s major stars (along with the husband, of course).

Rivera rarely makes movies as she is a contract star of GMA 7 and at the time her kids with Dantes were still toddlers, she preferred staying at home with them over working outside the house. Thus, her movie appearances are always big deal.

Balota is about an election in a village in which some goons break into the ballot canvassing in one school classroom to steal ballot boxes. Rivera portrays a tough teacher and she quickly grabs the ballot box whose contents are the last to be read and boldly fled into the forest bodily carrying the ballot box which happens to be made of metal. 

The goons run after her, catch her, try to wrestle away the ballot box from her, but she tightly holds the ballot box to her breast like a loved one needing protection.

The scene is from Rivera’s description in interviews at a previous event that had nothing to do with the yearly festival put up by the Cultural Center of the Philippines. It was actually the launch of a skin clinic which has signed up Rivera as endorser. With an entertainment idol as endorser, showbiz reporters were invited to the event. After asking Rivera a few questions about the endorsement, the reporters switched fully to her showbiz involvements.

Balota is directed by the militant activist-filmmaker who turned Sparkle star Gladys de Castro into an award-winning actor in Liway, an entry in the 2018 MMFF. It was about the filmmaker’s activist mother and the son she had to raise inside prison for suspected dissidents. That son is Kip Oebanda himself.

Rivera intoned (in Filipino) about her participation in the film: I can’t describe what I felt after finishing Balota. I always say, especially to my husband, that I’ve been in showbiz for a long time but my fulfillment in myself returned.

“Kip and I now have separation anxiety. We worked together for about seven days but once we finished, I felt like crying. I will miss Balota and everyone who’s part of it.”

The Cinemalaya screenings have to be done mainly at the Ayala Mall By the Bay (Manila Bay) because the CCP’s main building is still undergoing retrofitting and repairs.