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| Held every year in Mokra Gora, Serbia (1 hour away from Uzice) |
I had applied originally for the PA (Production Assistant) post but on the day of the interview I don't know why I decided to wear a skirt (yes, aha, wrong move). I remember the first impression I received from the interviewer who was also the Supervising Producer, & it was this: "I don't think you would suit this job. Can you write a screenplay? I would refer you to the Creatives Dept. and maybe they can consider you". WHAAAATTT??? And then she rang the Creatives Head & next thing I knew I was on the other side... So, of course I said I don't write, at least I know I have never tried writing for movies before, but they still went ahead and gave me the assignment. Remember that movie of Camille Pratts & Angelica Panganiban when they were still kids "Ang Pulubi at ang Prinsesa"? Yessss, they gave me a copy of the first draft of that script and gave me a week to make revisions, if I would make any. That was the 1st test.
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| no poster can be found online; but I found this :) so cute! |
Well, truth is, I made a lame attempt to write a script (30+ sequences so far) that year but it is unfinished up to this day. It was written using a typewriter and the last time I read it, the premise was still fine, but everything else was poorly written, with some missing conflicts.
So anyway, my short stint at Star was really memorable. It has given me a backstage-view of how films go through the pre-production stage. I was arranging meetings w/ writers, directors, and creative people. I was sitting-in in some pre-prod meetings like concept-pitchings, title-pitchings, loveteam-pitchings (Richard Gomez-Kristine Hermosa / Sharon Cuneta-Aga Muhlach/ Piolo Pascual-Claudine Baretto, mga ganyan). I had been part of several focus group discussions w/ ordinary people. And though at that time I could not share so much, it was the experience of being in the same room w/ really great people that amazed me. I was seeing movie stars dropping by the office once in a while :). I had to record at that time Pangako Sa'yo (yes, that teleserye) every night, and its competition (that GMA-7 soap that did not rate) for my boss since she was the headwriter for Pangako. I had read the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and final draft of the ending of Pangako before it was shot. I was keeping track of the Pangako Sayo viewers' thread at Pinoyexchange.com for our records. I coordinated the scriptwriting contest that year and read some amazing scripts. My batchmates at Star are the same directors and writers I see leading the current ABS-CBN shows. Some of them are behind the few indie films people are raving about recently. AND I remember almost fainting when my boss told me to arrange a meeting w/ Sharon Cuneta (my 1 & only idol). But then she said: "It's alright, I'll do it myself! (something like that, hahaha). So anyway, enough of that.
Despite the change in my career direction, I remain a film-lover up to now. From 2005-2006, during the beginning of the blog era, I was getting paid as a ghost writer by writing different topics online. I tried at one point writing film reviews and one of them was actually picked up by www.blogcritics.org. Here's the link to that article, Memoirs of a Geisha film review. I truly respect the craft at the same time get very intimidated by it. People in the film industry are real genuises, I always say. I think they have high level of intelligence & sense of creativity, are street smart, have good follow-up, good sense of humor & patience. I only have a little bit of sense of humor :)
Sometimes, I think, I am fascinated with film-making the same way I am fascinated with photography but there is this wall between me & film-making that is so impossible for me to climb. My taste in movies vary and I am blessed to have Ivan as a partner. Not only is he so unconventional, he patronizes the not-so-mainstream, that sometimes I feel he can disect films more than I can try to. I can listen to him praise and rant about certain movies, and he seems to always makes sense to me. So when he mentioned this famous Kustendorf film festival held every year in Serbia early last year to me, we knew we had to go, see some great films and get inspired together. And it's true we ended up having some of our best conversations after every movie.
The festival was founded and headed by Emir Kusturica. He is a world-famous director and winner of two Golden Palms at the Cannes Film Festival. The story I gathered from a few Serbian friends is that he is a native of Bosnia, made a movie in Mokra Gora of Serbia a few years back, fell in love with the place, and decided since then to build his village and setup a film festival.
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| This is the village of Mokra Gora. It's like a museum. Very pretty. |
Click here to see this year's movie line up
We went two times to the festival & saw feature films and short films.
These are the top 2 feature films that we highly recommend:
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| Chicken with Plums (France, 2011) directed by Marjane Satrapi |
The Verdict: Very rich material with a beautiful treatment. The director was first a comic illustrator, so expect beautiful visuals in the movie.
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| Stopped on Track (Germany, 2011), directed by Andreas Dresen |
The Verdict: Very real, very natural. Different treatment for a typical premise (the father is dying of cancer). This movie was shot WITHOUT a written screenplay. A lot of the movie was done with improvisation w/ a film crew of only 7 people including the 4 actors. Very very impressive.
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| The director, Andreas, during the workshop/Q&A. Every after each movie there is a workshop w/ the director that runs from 45 mins-1 hour. |
I may not be able to jump back to the film industry but it's nice to still have that certain passion, even now just as a viewer. I would love to hear your favorite films especially now that I have lots of time to watch. Feel free to leave me a message for any film you think we should see. Just except horror flicks :D
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