Pinay indie director wins Japan film pitching contest

The next great Filipino film may have just been born in Japan, with the awarding of nearly $3000 in seed money to a Filipina indie director for her idea about Japanese senior citizens dying alone.

Janus Victoria, who directs documentaries for the GMA Network program I-Witness, won the main prize in the annual Talent Campus Tokyo competition for film concepts.

A Filipina participant in the competition last year, Hannah Espia, turned her entry into the feature film "Transit," which reaped a slew of awards at this year's Cinemalaya Film Festival, including best film and best director for Espia.

Like Espia's film which is set in Israel, Victoria's story crosses geographical boundaries, exploring the world of Japanese elderly who are increasingly dying alone in a society where the old are fast outnumbering the young. But Victoria adds a smiling Filipino twist to this sad world.

According to the website Film Business Asia:

“The jury praised the quality of the idea, the passion of the film-maker and the film's ambition to ‘not only shed a new light on a controversial subject in Japanese society but also connect Filipino cinema to Japan through a gripping story.’”

In Victoria's story, a middle-aged Japanese man tries to escape the loneliness of wealthy Japan by traveling to the poor but happy-go-lucky environs of Manila to search for love.

"It's a tale of two cities: Tokyo and Manila. They are only hours apart but there's a world of difference between them," she told GMA News Online after winning her prize.

As the winner of the competition, Victoria was given a grant of Y300,000, or US$2930, to help make her dream project come true. But she knows that it is far from enough to produce a quality film that will require spending time in Japan. So she is still pitching her idea to other possible backers.

A graduate of Ateneo de Manila University, Victoria works with veteran documentarist Howie Severino in producing monthly episodes for I-Witness, one of the country's longest running public affairs programs.

Her short films have been screened in Korea, France and Germany. Her first short film, Hopia Express (2006), received the best short film award from the Cinemanila Film Festival.
– GMA News