Ate OG
a film by Kevin Mayuga
‘Ate OG’ is a stab at the privileged class during the pandemic. It’s a quiet film about Ate, a household helper, who works endlessly to keep the house in order while also tending to the spoiled demands of the two very capable teenagers, who ask her for every little thing. Asking Ate for water when it’s on the table in front of her? It’s there. Complaining about the hardships of lockdown while asking for her to make Iced Milo? It’s in the film.
The juxtaposition between the two teens and their inane demands play off strongly with Ate’s own personal issues dramatized by personal phone calls. It shows how vastly different their lives and troubles are even if they are living under the same roof. But a discovery changes Ate’s outlook completely and shifts the attitudes of each character to each other before it all ends.
It’s amusing, to say the least, but while the film opens up these images of privilege and elitism, it does not offer a viable solution to overturn it and so it leaves me a little unsure about how I feel. It’s attempt at solving this issue through its punchline ending feels more like a bandaid than anything else and so the film leaves me with looking for something more.
The Dust in your Place
a film by David Olson
‘The Dust in your Place’ succeeds by making the most of its minimal elements. It’s an intimate story of a partnership of an artist and a writer, who work on a comic strip together for the past 8 years. It’s just the two of them in the writer’s place and they cannot focus on work because of the just-concluded argument between the writer and his girlfriend. That fight brings up a conversation that is loaded with their personal history.
The film unfolds very much like a play and director David Olson makes great use of his actors and the minimal spacing. The camera jumps from person-to-person and then captures them in a 2-shot that puts the focus on the action that’s pushed merely through dialogue. But Joem Antonio’s screenplay is brilliant because, while the film is very verbose, the film’s weight is delivered by what is not being said. The history of this friendship is put to the test and it’s all made evident by the precision of the dialogue and the delivery by Chaye Moggs and Boo Gabunada, who manage to infuse these two characters with a past that is so palpable you think it’s real.
Other than the highly stylized production design that brings more attention to itself than it does to support the narrative, everything else in this film is working at full throttle. You don’t know much about these people but in no time,you get drawn into their friendship and you begin to wait for one of them to finally say what it is they are not saying.
And the best part? What is finally said out loud isn’t what you’re probably expecting.
Ang Mga Nawalang Pag-asa at Panlasa
a film by Kevin Ayson
What a marvelous touch by the festival programmer to end Set B with this delicious documentary on Ilocano cuisine. As a documentary short, it covers a lot of ground: from the wide range of exciting dishes (that look really appetizing) that can be found in Ilocos Norte, some of which I’ve never even heard of and am excited to try, to how these small restaurants and street vendors manage to gain popularity over the years, to how the pandemic affected them, and how the Ilocano youth saved them.
The narrative flows seamlessly through these wide range of topics, establishing the importance of food as culture but also to highlight the small business owners who keep the local traditions of food in the region going. It’s inspiring enough already but when you intersect this with a movement of the youth called Sabaw Hunters then it’s just really inspiring and energizes you to want to do something.
There are times when the documentary feels cheesy, glossy, and even commercialized but the moment it ends, I feel emboldened to do my part — to do something — and that’s a nice way to end a set of films in this festival.
Watch the thirteen finalists of the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival 2021 on KTX.ph via pay-per-view until September 5, 2021. The films for the main competition are divided into Set A and Set B, with each set available for only P150. Visit the CCP and Cinemalaya websites for more information.
