Pinoy indie ‘Swap’ heads to Spain’s San Sebastian Film Fest

Remton Siege Zuasola’s "Swap" will be part of Spain's San Sebastian International Film Festival, running from September 18 to 26. This was announced by the film's producer, Bianca Balbuena of Epicmedia, in a Facebook post late last week.

The film will be part of the festival's Zabaltegi section, which highlights films that are “difficult to classify and [are] suggestive of today’s movie scene.” Zuasola will be competing alongside filmmakers from the US, Argentina, France, Chile, and Spain in what promises to be an eclectic and interesting program.

"Swap" was part of this year’s Sinag Maynila festival. Shot in one take, the feature is a stylized fictional retelling of an incident in the filmmaker’s early life and is set in the last days of the Marcos regime. As with most of his past films (except for the bilingual "Soap Opera"), the film is shot in Cebuano.

While the San Sebastian festival mostly features Spanish and Latin American films, Balbuena told GMA News Online that the Asian presence this year would not be insignificant.

Zuasola will be featured alongside one of Singapore’s most celebrated directors, Eric Khoo. “It's an honor to represent the country with a film like 'Swap,' which is very pregnant with social issues and a very personal story to the director,” Balbuena said. “We hope they will be more open to Filipino cinema because only Brillante Mendoza, Lav Diaz, and Raya Martin have made it there.”

We were unable to hear from the filmmaker himself as of press time, as he was busy preparing for his first film festival trip. His producer was quite thrilled about the prospect of going to Spain, however. “[Jose Luis Rebordino, San Sebastian’s festival director] gave me the invitation letter right away after watching 'Swap'. I was shocked and screaming while I was driving,” she said, “I called Remton and he also couldn't believe [it].”

She was unable to visit San Sebastian when Diaz’s "Prologue to the Great Desaparacido" premiered there, but she promises to make it this time to promote Zuasola’s third feature film.


For an independent film like "Swap", the role of a producer is crucial to its getting more exposure and support. This announcement came not long after another Epicmedia project, Pepe Diokno’s "Above the Clouds", finally had its long-awaited Philippine premiere at Cinemalaya 2015. Balbuena told GMA News Online that she saw her role thus: “My mission as a producer is to push deserving directors forward, give them a chance to tell their story the way they want it told, fight for honest cinema and make films that will last and outlive me.”

"Swap" will be screened again in Cebu on September 17 to 18 at SM Cebu, and more screenings locally are expected. — BM, GMA News