Unlike the previous years, the 15th edition of the Cinemalaya International Film Festival is a pretty straightforward one. The longtime pillar of the festival, Tony Boy Cojuangco, gave a speech, followed by a veteran director identifiable with the festival, Laurice Guillen.
Awards were presented to organizations and individuals like Philip Cheah, Max Tessier, Bayani Sandiego, Maney Dayrit at Central Digital Lab Inc., Bayview Park Hotel Manila, Ayala Mall Cinemas, etc. Curiously, no columnist or film reviewer who regularly put out reviews of all the film's entries yearly for about a decade was awarded.
After the honorifics, festival director Chris Millado announced the Cinemalaya 15 Squad Goals. These include:
1. The Cinemalaya app which can be downloaded via Google and Itunes app store for free. You can use it to purchase tickets in advance and avoid long lines. However, as of writing I do not see the existence of the app in the Google app store.
2. Souvenir picture with eyeball balloons near staircase
3. Facebook frame
4. Food trucks at the CCP front ramp (I personally recommend TEAndahan which is a milk tea store ran by some people from Tanghalang Pilipino)
5. AR experience (4th floor by Optima Digital)
6. Exhibit at the 3rd floor long gallery
7. eyeVend film market at the 4th floor
8. Book launches
9. Cinemalaya premieres
10. eyeball U (Cinemalaya conversations) - aug. 7 and 8
11. eyeChill: Devant Screening Lounge
12. Get over the fomo at eyeFlix
13. Cinemalaya at the microcinemas
14. Cinemalaya at Ayala Cinemas and Vista Cinemas
15. Cinemalaya campus at the regions
Mel Chionglo presented the official Cinemalaya feature length and short film directors. After that, there was a dance performance by the Cinemalaya dancers while wearing....surprisingly....eyeball suits.
The opening film which was Hupa by Lav Diaz lasted for about 4 and a half hours. It started around 7:30pm and finished around midnight. By the way, the call time for the ceremonies was at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.
The author highly recommends the viewers the viewers to catch John Denver Trending, Tabon, and Ani. This recommendation was based on the author's assessment of the uniqueness of the material based on the synopses and trailers present.
For those watching, the author recommends a Facebook group she is a member of but not one of the admins. The said group is the Philippine Cinema Forum where movie reviews are consolidated into individual threads. She also recommends the quick reviews by Philbert Dy via Twitter (with links to his full reviews on a website) as well as www.devasishanti.blogspot.com (lots of pop culture references) and magandabamovie.wordpress.com (also has an IG and the points are easy to understand).
The festival runs until the 13th of August. Please visit www.cinemalaya.org for more information.
The author has been watching Cinemalaya since 2007 and has been part of the very first Cinemalaya as a supporting actress. She watches at least a hundred films a year with 70 percent of those being local films.
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