Binisaya 2015: Shorts A

All good things must come to an end, and today's Binisaya's last screening day. Unfortunately the screenings were cut short because of outside events, but I did manage to catch the other set of shorts in competition. How was it?

Atong Mga Kanta is a short docu about the Mandaue Children's Choir, a group of kids that sing internationally. Being only nine minutes long it feels more like a summary; while we hear about the choir as a whole from the choirmaster we don't really hear from the children themselves. This could be an interesting idea for a full length docu that follows them around.

Mga Handuraw Sa Kahilitan feels weird and creepy at first, but given that it's viewed from the mind of a mentally ill person, it makes sense. It's basically a story about a girl who shuns any connections to other people; only a stuffed bird named Chickie talks to her. There were times during the screening where I couldn't hear Chickie speaking, and I'm not sure if it was intentional or due to a sound problem. The story does explain itself at the end, which reveals Chickie as something more than meets the eye.

ADDENDUM: Based on the comments from Director Amaya Han below, and after a rewatch of the film using speakers and headphones, it's clear that the sound problem was a technical problem - the sound for the film was probably recorded in stereo, and the theater's sound system probably only played the right channel for some reason. This led to around half of Chickie's lines unspoken, as well as two crucial sound effects during the corridor scene that were silent during my first viewing of the film. Also, it's especially creepy watching this alone at 2am in the morning. Hehe.

Ale Alejandra is my favorite short of the set. It's a bit tongue in cheek, telling us a story of a barbecue-stick wielding assassin on her roaring rampage of revenge (also, her search for her missing sister.) It really impresses thanks to a very interesting usage of flowing transitions, composition and framing that I have rarely seen anywhere else. While the story is relatively simplistic, the visuals really sell the idea.

The title of Dymphna is a reference to Saint Dymphna, the patron saint of the mentally ill. It tells the story of Laine, a nurse who works in a mental hospital. As anyone who has worked in a mental hospital can tell you, the work is taxing, both physically and mentally. She is assigned to a patient who is for all intents and purposes, catatonic. She cares for him and considers him a sort of respite; in a way, they both treat each other. There are other hints from Laine's past that Laine herself may have St. Dymphna as a patron saint as well...  albeit in a different category. The payoff is quick but it reveals itself gradually in the last sequence, with the payoff in the very last shot - a field of manufactured flowers as a sign of healing.

Memorya is the sole animated entry in the lot, done in the style of anime, using rendered real life pictures as background. The story tries a bit to draw inspiration from works like 5cm Per Second, but the end result isn't as effective as the stories they are inspired from. It did, however, garner the best audience reaction from the relatively young audience, so I guess it hit its intended audience. The sound recording was a bit off, but I saw that there was a remastered version in the credits. I wonder if this wasn't the remastered version. Watch it purely for the sake of seeing a rare animated feature from a Filipino filmmaker.

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That ends UP Manila's run of the Binisaya Film Festival. I hope Binisaya comes back soon; I had a great time watching all the films. It's refreshing to see this new wave of Visayan filmmakers do their thing; their works have a different, almost bold feel compared to some of their northern counterparts.