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.
Cedrick Juan, the breakthrough best actor at the 2024 MMFF, has an entry, too: Gulay Lang Po, Manong. But at the media huddle for Cinemalaya held at the ballroom of the Metropolitan Theater on Wednesday (10 July), he was not as big a deal as Rivera. Some journos and vloggers flocked to him, too, for some yarns.
If he was a martyred priest in Gomburza, his MMFF 2023 entry, he is now a policeman set out to investigate the illegal selling of marijuana leaves from an illegal marijuana plantation. He will discover not only that his brother is a marijuana smoker and a seller disguised as a gulay (vegetables) but other cops and government officials are the protectors of the syndicate.
Gulay Lang, Manong is the first full-length feature of a male filmmaker from Pampanga who bills himself in the film’s credits simply as BC Amparado.
We’ll deal with the other entries and events in the forthcoming Cinemalaya film fest in succeeding issues of this column.
Reunion
Un/Happy for You is the gimmicky title of the reunion movie of ex-sweethearts Julia Barretto and Joshua Garcia produced by ABS-CBN Star Cinema and Viva Films. It’s their first ever after they broke up five years ago because Barretto fell for Gerald Anderson while doing a film in Japan: Between Maybes. At first, they denied the relationship but eventually admitted it, leaving Garcia out in the cold.
Possibly because the producers have posted on social media teaser scenes from the new film that elicit kilig from the allegedly still numerous fans of the “JoshLia” loveteam, they flashed at the media conference for the film scenes after the lovers in the story had ceased to be sweethearts for sometime but Juancho (Garcia) wanted a rebound only to be told by Zy (Barretto) that she is already engaged to be married.
Feeling heart-broken once more, Pancho was advised by a close friend (played by Aljon Jimenez in his first film ever) that Juancho should do everything to ruin Zy’s life. And Juancho heeded him. Juancho can do it because they all work together in a bar.
In one scene, Juancho describes Zy within her hearing as “traydor” like the new cocktail drink he has concocted as the bar tender. Filipino slang for “slut.” Zy helplessly responds, “I never cheated you!”
In another scene, Juancho deliberately drove his motorcycle almost straight into Zy who was standing in front of the building where they work.
In yet another scene, Juancho invited Zy to go to a river to catch crablets. They had to ride a boat, with Juancho paddling roughly as if wanting to make Zy fall out. The scene was cut, so we didn’t get to know if she did fall off.
The media huddle for Un/Happy For You was held on the same day as the one for Cinemalaya. That of Un/Happy for You was held at about 7 p.m. at the Dolphy Theater on ABS-CBN.
Garcia was almost hyper while sitting with Barretto on stage, along with the film director Petersen Vargas (A Very Good Child and some members of the cast, including Mendoza and stage actor Meann Espinosa. Two of the film’s two writers Kookai Labayen, Crystal San Miguel (the third, Jen Chuaunsu, was not in the huddle).
Despite Garcia’s being almost hyper, both lead actors behaved sweetly towards each other but without letting their bodies touch each other. It was only when they entered the stage that they held hands.
The question of the possibility of their re-team up affecting their respective real romantic relationships was asked by the journos in various guises. Barretto is still very much with Anderson, and Garcia has finally admitted his romance with French-Filipino athlete Emilienne Vigier. Both actors repeatedly said their screen reunion will not affect their respective paramour.
They even stressed that they wish they would be asked to do next a comedy since they haven’t done one together.
Those who may be wondering why Un/Happy For You suddenly has Viva Films credited also as producer, when all JoshLia movies in the past had only Star Cinema billed as producer. Well, it’s all because Barretto moved to Viva Artists Agency in 2022 when her ABS-CBN Star Magic expired and the network lost its broadcast franchise. When a Viva star on the lead actor level is signed up by another company, they have to enter a kind of legal contract that makes Viva Films as co-producer. That’s the reason why all of Vice Ganda’s movie with Star Cinema has Viva Films as co-producer. Vice Ganda is a Viva Artists Agency talent.
