“Manang Biring” hailed as Best Film at Cinema One Originals

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The winners of the 2015 Cinema One Originals film festival

Director Carl Joseph Papa’s touching animated drama film “Manang Biring,” was recognized as the Best Film at the 2015 Cinema One Originals awards night. 

Carl Joseph Papa accepts the best film award for Manang Biring together with Erlinda Villalobos who plays the titular role

The only animated entry in this year’s Cinema One Originals, “Manang Biring” also won in two other categories namely Best Music and the Champion Bughaw Award. 

Carl’s animated film revolves around Manang Biring, a terminally ill old lady diagnosed with stage four breast cancer who gets an unexpected letter from a dear loved one who wants to reunite with her for Christmas. 

“I just entered ‘Manang Biring’ in Cinema One Originals because I wanted to fulfill our team’s dream to make a full-length animated film,” Carl said. He elaborated, “I am thankful to Cinema One Originals for giving us a chance to make our project. I hope our film will be screened in more cinemas in the Philippines.” 

Meanwhile, director Ralston Jover’s “Hamog,” a story on the lives of four street children who suddenly get caught in a web of consecutive and unforeseen tragedies, reaped four recognitions including Best Editing, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress, and the coveted Jury Award. 

Child actors win big at Cinema One Originals. Therese Malvar (best actress) with co-star Bor Lentejas (best supporting actor), the stars of Ralston Jover's Hamog

Young stars Therese Malvar and Bor Lentejas also captured the crowd’s attention at the awards night when they were hailed as the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor of the festival, outshining seasoned actors in their respective categories. 

The two newcomers from “Hamog” were speechless. Therese, 15, who cried onstage as she accepted her second best actress award in her career, credited direk Ralston for her award-winning performance. 

“My role in ‘Hamog’ is serious. I’m very thankful to direk Ralston for his help and mentorship for me to do well,” Therese shared. She added, “I did not expect this at all. I did not even prepare a good speech. I’m just thankful to my management, my parents, and to God.” 

The awards night also paid tribute to Rox Lee, Joey Agbayani, Mike and Johnny Alcazaren, Nick Deocampo, and Raymond Red, the pillars of Philippine alternative cinema. 

Cinema One Originals is an annual film festival that allows talented Filipino storytellers to showcase their stories through film for 11 years. It is a local independent film festival of Cinema One, one of the cable channels of Creative Programs, Inc., a subsidiary of ABS-CBN. 

The following are the winners at the 2015 Cinema One Originals festival: 

Jury Prize winner: Hamog, Ralston Jover 

Best Film: Manang Biring, Carl Joseph Papa 

Best Actress: Therese Malvar, Hamog 

Best Actor: Dino Patrano, Baka Siguro Yata 

Best Supporting Actress: Chai Fonacier, Miss Bulalacao 

Best Supporting Actor: Bor Lentejas, Hamog 

Best Director: Dayang Asu, Bor Ocampo 

Best Screenplay: Miss Bulalacao, Ara Chawdhury 

Best Cinematography: Dayang Asu (Albert Banzon)

Cinema One announces final 10 films for upcoming C1 originals festival

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Cinema One has finally announced its selection of ten films for the upcoming Cinema One Originals Festival.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary of constantly supporting the growth of the local film industry, Cinema One has chosen to allocate a budget of P2-million for the production of these ten selected films, all carefully chosen out of numerous submissions upon its call for entries during the festival’s previous year.

The ten films chosen were those by directors Jay Abello, Nash Ang, Kanakan Balintagos, Sigrid Andrea Bernardo, Eduardo Dayao, Alec Figuracion, Antoinette Jadaone, Malay Javier, Paolo O’Hara, and Remton Siega Zuasola.

Jay Abello’s film entitled “Red” is an action film of how mere gossip rocked a town’s circuit of local drug dealers, junkies, and vagabonds in Bacolod. Red, a legendary fixer in the underground world of Visayas, is called to patch things up—but he soon finds himself framed for the very thing he was asked to repair, forced into decisions that put his life at stake.

Nash Ang brings the film “Seoul Mates” to this year’s festival. “Seoul Mates” is a sweet comedy of a man and woman who fatefully meet on a bridge just at the moment that they attempt to jump from it. They arrange and schedule their deaths with each other, but something goes wrong. They fall in love—a situation further complicated because the two are not exactly the traditional man and woman tandem. Set in Seoul, “Confessions” is a Koreanovela in the making.

“Abel/Cain” is what director Kanakan Balintagos is bringing to the table this year. An adaptation of Auraeus Solito’s play entitled Esprit de Corps in the 1980’s about the game of seduction and ranks in the ROTC, “Abel/Cain” is a queer story of two cadets and their pursuit to outwit a corrupt Major Marcus for his position.

Director Sigrid Andrea Bernardo presents the film “Lorna,” a midlife comedy drama of a woman’s romantic life—a story of being alone, growing old, looking for love, and moving on. Lorna, already in her 60’s, finds an online lover and an old flame that will turn her life upside down. But at her age, is love too late for a woman like Lorna?

The film “Violator” is a psycho-horror set in the brink of an apocalypse by director Eduardo Dayao. In it, three policemen with nowhere to go and everything to lose meet a mysterious stranger in their precinct that will force them to confront a darker secret amidst them.

Director Alec Figuracion brings “Bitukang Manok” to life. A horror in the tradition of Twilight Zone, the film shows four cars stranded in the EME road to Bicol. A group of travelers soon realize that they are driving in circles and decide to work together to break free—but slowly, they find out that stranger forces are at work.

“That Thing Called Tadhana,” a romance-comedy in the tradition of Before Sunrise is what Antoinette Jadaone has created. The films asks the questions “Where do broken hearts go?” and tells the story of a woman struggling to meet airline baggage requirements who meets a man who comes to her aid. Both in despair out of love, they form a charming friendship that will take them to Sagada in their attempts to mend each other’s hearts.

Malay Javier will be presenting “Di Sila Tatanda,” a sci-fi teen flick about the Pangasinan U.F.O. sightings in the 90’s, where three childhood friends enter a love trapezoid with an alien. This is how an alien shows what it means to be truly human-in-love, in its pursuit to mate with a girl whose heart belongs to two human friends.

“The Housekeepers” by Paolo O’Hara is a comedy of errors of a couple instructed to babysit a kidnapped child. However, when the kidnappers order them to kill the baby, they flee instead and raise him as their own.

Director Remton Siega Zuasola brings “Soap O Pera,” the story of a modus gone wrong, wherein a couple seduces foreigners to visit the Philippines with the promise of marriage to con them for their money. This is a comic drama about how a local soap opera brings the scheming couple and their foreign victim closer as they play family to support their sick son whose only relief is the fantasy world of Ramini, his favorite television hero.

The Cinema One Originals is an annual independent film festival produced by the ABS-CBN-owned cable channel, Cinema One. To date, the festival has produced international award-winning films like Jerrold Tarog’s “Confessional” (2007), Sherad Anthony Sanchez’s “Imburnal” (2008) and Antoinette Jadaone’s “Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay” (2011) and other internationally acclaimed films such as “Shift” (2013), “The Dream of Eleuteria” (2010), and “Ang Paglalakbay sa Gabing Madilim” (2012) among others.

For updates on the Cinema One Originals Festival, visit Cinema One’s official Facebook page (www.facebook.com/Cinema1channel).