Unlike last year’s Cinemalaya, which was also held online, this year’s batch of short films are seen as a whole. Last year, you could choose which films to see and in what order but this time around, the films are curated much like the Cinemalaya pre-pandemic and I think it is a stronger choice. The curation of Set A balances out the films — almost all of them with innovative and refreshing new ideas — between those with technical mastery and those with strong narrative foundations.
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The seven films run at almost 98 minutes and it’s a wonderful journey of the way the new batch of Filipino filmmakers are making use of cinematic language to tell our stories.
My Rating:
Maski Papano
a film by Che Tagyamon and Glenn Barit
The stop-motion animated satirical existential film ‘Maski Papano’ plays off like a love story at the start but turns into an allegory on life during the pandemic. It’s the story of a face mask that was disposed of and runs off to find his owner but despairs when he discovers he was replaced by a newer, better face mask. But our protagonist discovers he is not alone and the shift from satire to allegory is as striking as it is charming and hilarious.
The animation and production design is innovative and really jumps out of the screen while the dialogue is crisp and precise; working several levels. On one hand it depicts a satirical overplayed love story (complete with cheesy lines) and then turns into a comic metaphor about moving on that not only faux mockingly makes fun of our lives as we “move on” but it highlights our coping mechanisms in the pandemic.
A wonderful start, ‘Maski Papano’ is refreshing, inventive, and completely unexpected.
Crossing
a film by Marc Misa
A story about a holdup on a bus gone wrong, ‘Crossing’ is simple yet effective in the way it handles the cramped space and its pacing. It does not over-dramatize and thus it manages to hit hard with its narrative conceit that forces us to question our morals in the face of hardship. It makes us take a look at heroes and criminals and the social conditions that push them to the actions that they make.
Economical in its cinema, ‘Crossing’ succeeds by giving us exactly what we need to see and hear and feel at the right time and then ends strong allowing the thoughts to linger as the credits roll.
Kawatan sa Salog (A Toy in the River)
a film by Alphie Velasco
‘Kawatan sa Salog’ is an otherworldly story about penance, redemption, and growth. Kyle Kaizer Almenanza plays Santi, a young boy who has taken to a habit of stealing. An act of rebellion against his father, a fisherman who is rough around the edges and is doing the best to raise his son alone. But an argument leads to Santi falling into a river, which we are told is a bridge to another world and Santi finds himself there.
Lui Manansala plays the older woman in the island beyond the river, who takes care of Santi as he makes sense of this new world he finds himself in. Manansala is an actress who can do so much in stillness and silence and she creates a great rapport with Almenanza in a lyrical film with striking visual imagery and an ending that is as chilling as it is ambiguous.
This is a film that knows how to restrain itself, only explaining what needs to be explained and in the process delivers a film that is as magical as it is mysterious.
