Film as healing in 'Boses'

At the Cinemalaya Festival of 2008, cineastes were the first to describe the indie film "Boses" as “deeply moving.” Film critic Butch Francisco declared it “close to perfection.”   

  

Indeed, its blend of the best in Philippine theater and new cinematic sensibility marks the growth of the young tree of Filipino indie filmmaking. Here’s fresh proof of a healthy new cinema liberated by digital technology and fed by film grant-making bodies creeping up on the reigning star-and-studio system. 

       

More than that, this story of a child, who turns out to be a musical prodigy but so battered that he turns mute, is an eloquent advocate for children’s rights. This is what a premiere on July 23 aims to bring to the attention of the Filipino millions through media and the Internet on the eve of its opening in SM digital cinemas on July 31. 

 

"Boses" all began with filmmaker Ellen Ongkeko-Marfil’s first riveted reading of the prizewinning Cinemanila competition script, “Tinig ng Dilim” by Froi Medina. She knew it would cost much more to produce than the Cinemalaya production grant she was vying for, but well worth the plunge into risky waters. 

Having won the grant, her first challenge was to find two needles in the proverbial haystack – two violinists who could act. Approaching the renowned violinist Coke Bolipata, once her son’s own teacher, was the best thing she could have done. When the Muses flipped on a magic switch, she found herself “enamored with his passion for the violin and  advocacy to bring the instrument to local communities.” The student he recommended, the child prodigy Julian Duque, “turned out to be a gem – not just competent but brilliant.” 

 

One thing followed another in creative chemistry. Next Ellen convinced the maestro to try out for the role of the boy’s emotionally wounded teacher, whose healing follows his pupil’s own. To her gratified surprise, his audition showed “an amazing sense of truth.” Now she had her two lead stars!   

 

As their collaboration warmed, Coke allowed Ellen to transform Casa San Miguel, his ancestral home now an arts center in his Zambales hometown, “into a shelter for child abuse with all his students and staff in the community becoming part of the actors’ ensemble.”

 

Not in her wildest dreams could she have afforded all that, but what she could offer was equity shares for the cast and staff to share the risk with all future royalties. This scheme she had developed for her first film, "Mga Pusang Gala," not only “drastically cut costs but tapped great passion in the team to come up with something they really believe in.” 

 

Ellen’s career had after all begun in the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), where alleviation of the human condition is burned into one’s theater genes. She knew the power of collective synergy and saw a chance to advocate for child rights with the power of music and film. Her dream proved a perfect match for Coke Bolipata’s own vision to unleash Filipino musical genius from its roots. When he bought into her dream as co-producer, a deal was sealed between two artists both dreaming big for country.  

 

But another serious obstacle would face them next: enough production money for a film without “star power.” Her stars were “great violinists and actors, but audiences don’t see them every day.” The Cinemalaya deadline was looming as Ellen found private capital not quite ready to risk return on investment for the cutting edge. Like water flowing past all obstacles, however, that led to another turn of good luck: institutions that had just launched the two-year campaign, “Children Against Violence,” welcoming ‘Boses’ with open arms. 

 

“On the strength of the script alone,” Ellen recounts, “the Department of Social Welfare, the Council for the Welfare for Children and UNICEF partnered with me without any interference in the output and with all the enthusiasm to plan for its distribution. Their concern was not financial gain but a chance to help in dissemination.” 

Now that she had enough for production, up came the next challenge: how to bring home an “elitist” story built on classical music foreign to a star-addled film audience: “The conditions in this country and the distractions of the modern world are the reasons we have a very star-driven cinema. You need stars with fans who can forget the weather, the exams, the problem at home, even the lack of money, to go watch the movie,” she reflected. 

 

To someone like Ellen, however, that only meant that she “had to go the long route and experience screening per screening, hear the audience get really affected and love the film. Having gathered such an audience, I could rely on word of mouth and link up with groups who believe in the film.” 

 

Eight years ago, she was among the first to shoot a film on a mini-digital video camera, then blow it up for mainstream theaters. Today she dreams a bigger dream for indie filmmaking: “There are so many indie films being made today, winning awards left and right in film festivals abroad, but not really being seen by the majority of Filipinos, who should benefit the most from this new consciousness and sensibility being given birth to in stories never before seen in mainstream cinema.

 

“At most, they have a one-theater exposure locally, reaching a very small audience. A ten- to twenty-thousand audience is in fact already a good crowd, but for a population of 90 million is really just a drop in the bucket.

 

“As an indie filmmaker, part of my business plan is developing an alternative but regular-run indie circuit based in schools and communities because I feel competing in the mainstream circuit is almost suicide if you do not have the financial and promotional machinery. Many indie films are doing this already but independently and randomly. My goal is to lay the groundwork to institutionalize the circuit, for film to be recognized as a necessity.” 

'Community endeavor'

 

Ellen Ongkeko-Marfil’s instincts have served  her well. A week after its Cinemalaya launching, “a deluge of requests” for "Boses" screenings came from schools, NGOs, and local government units with “various concerns from child rights and alternative parenting, to mentoring the mentors for educators, to human rights and the abuse of power, to music as therapy.” 

 

The UNICEF core group wanted to use the film to lobby for a bill against corporal punishment of children and mount a campus tour of films on child rights. The Council for the Welfare of Children wanted “Boses” to help them make child rights part of formal education. The Quezon City local government wanted to show it to all its public high schools and teachers developing a curriculum on gender and development.  

 

“More and more people exposed to the new sensibilities of indie filmmaking are getting the taste for it,” Ellen says. Her team has now negotiated for a 22-digital theater run with the SM mall conglomerate for a kick-off screening on July 31 for Children’s Month and a one-week screening in December to celebrate child rights with educators’ associations.

 

But it’s clear to Ellen that the growth of the indie movement she helped pioneer comes with a need to go even closer to where the people are. She’s working with many groups helping her turn “Boses” into a community endeavor. The Department of Education has released an advisory on “Boses” as a powerful advocacy tool for child protection. The CBCP Episcopal Commission on Youth, Commission on Higher Education (CHED), the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP), World Vision and the Philippine Society of Childhood and Adolescent Psychiatrists (PSCAP) have all endorsed the film.      

 

On the principle that film can be a community endeavor, also helping in various ways, from online promotions and linkages to sponsorship of block screenings are PSCAP, the Philippine Association of Gender and Development Advocates, Couples for Christ Taytay and Mandaluyong, child-focused organizations like World Vision Philippines, the Philippine Children's Ministries Network, and Ang Mananampalatayang Gumagawa Inc. Last May the Ortigas Library Foundation gave a screening for teachers. Food for the Hungry and Plan International are doing their bit. 

 

Even the Department of Foreign Affairs has joined in. Believing that “culture and economics really go hand in hand on the international front,” its Cultural Diplomacy Unit included “Boses” in a seven-film series for study and appreciation by 200 officers and staff last May. There it joined modern classics like Mike de Leon’s “Bayaning Third World,” Lino Brocka’s “Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang,” Ishmael Bernal’s “Himala,” Eddie Romero’s “Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon?”, Brillante Mendoza’s “Lola,” and Jeffrey Jeturian’s “Kubrador.” 

 

Over the past five years, it’s been proven by its foreign screenings that the potential audience for this film goes beyond our islands. Ignatius Films Canada and Unico, a local company with an office in the US, are bringing it to global markets. Overseas screenings have been booked by the Vienna International Centre Club Filipino. Last June, co-producers Coke and Ellen were in London’s famous Riverside Theater for a screening organized with support from the Philippine Consulate and One Billion Rising.      

 

Public support, big and small, just keeps coming. TV host Boy Abunda has done a testimonial; actor Coco Martin and psychiatrist Dr. Margie Holmes are endorsing. Friends in promotions and film distribution are “finding ways to help to get the word out there.”

 

“Truly,” Ellen says, “this project is a dream come true – from funding to creation to dissemination and business development – made possible through the help of concerned institutions which put art or the entertainment world in the service of its community.” 

 

The guest list for the “Boses” premiere on July 23 reads like a “Who’s Who” of children’s rights advocates–officials of government agencies, church institutions, NGOs, student leaders, music and film enthusiasts, the new Senator Grace Poe, who focused on children’s protection at the MTRCB, and President Aquino, whose government prioritizes child protection. 

 

In true cause-oriented fashion, Ellen believes in “raising this film to a higher level so everyone would consider themselves a stakeholder, that its mainstream success means mainstreaming child advocacy, helping a project in the field of pop culture, the major influence on the Filipino psyche. If this succeeds, it will be truly groundbreaking” for children’s rights. 

 

Groundbreaking begins at home, however. There’s a fly in this ointment she must swat for the sake of her creative team: “The problem with film screenings which come in the form of DVD or mini-DV tapes is that organizers tend to bargain for very low prices, thinking it’s just a DVD and the work has been done anyway. 

 

“This becomes our entry point for our third advocacy – the sustainability of artists, the need to reward them for meaningful endeavors. Artists did the project for a song, for art and advocacy. People are beginning to understand this.”

 

After all, the artist’s job is to dream new dreams where  change can begin for all. —KG/HS, GMA News