#cinekabalen2012

Last December 1, 2012 I was reminded yet again that I am where I really want to be. And I do know what I truly want in life and that I’m enjoying every bit of it. It was the screening and awarding for the second CineKabalen Kapampangan Film Festival for the year 2012. It was amazing. It still kinda feels surreal.

At first I wasn’t sure if I could go to the said event because it was on a Saturday and it’s scheduled to be held at our university and that we have Saturday classes anyway, I wasn’t positive that I could go since we had a family thing right after. 

And then it occurred to me that this kind of thing doesn’t happen everyday. It’s not everyday that I get to see our work, our team’s work that we started from a simple attempt of joining the film festival, come to life. It may not be on big screen but viewing it from the projector is more than enough. So I decided to go and ditch the family thing. After all, I remembered when Jade and Manuel went to my place last sembreak to plan for this. I remembered when we practically had no idea if we’re going to push through with making this film happen, when we had casting problems for the role of Ana, when I was finally able to work in one project with one of my best friends Charis, when we had to endure the long travel time from our place to Porac so that we could shoot, when the whole team would go to my place and we’d all help each other edit the film, when I literally didn’t sleep at all so that I could stich all the video and just polish it and found myself dumbfounded when iMovie crashed and we lost most of our audios, when we were all silent while we were trying to find a solution for it, the joy that we all felt when we retrieved the files, when we were late for the deadline of submission and we all thought that it’s the end of it all but we ended up submitting it that night anyways… Those kinds of things. And then I decided that I’d go.

Excuse my dementor-like face, grace under pressure the total opposite way! Hahaha. 

Of course I was insecure as hell because it was my first time to join a film production, and I knew that some of those who joined the film festival were damn good and experienced with filming already plus the fact that they used camera lenses that are really good, and of course their skills. But despite all that, I am proud of our film Gusto Da Ka. I am proud of everyone. We’re just 4 in the production team and I’m pretty convinced that a film wouldn’t be successful if it doesn’t have a big production. But, without bragging or anything, I know that our production team, the Snooze Productions, proved that common notion in the field of filming wrong. I know we all worked hand in hand, we were all teaching each other while doing the whole process. And we made it.

  When it was time for the screening of all the 17 entries, I found myself enjoying some of the entries made by our fellow Kapampangans. And of course, being a filmmaker (heh, I don’t like labeling myself as that but I’m gonna use it anyway) I also found myself pointing out at some mistakes made by others with their films and I myself admit that we have some mistakes as well but it’s fun doing that because we get to learn from each others mistakes after all. When the projector turned black, and I saw the subtitle ‘It’s her birthday today.’ I immediately knew that it’s ours already, and I literally had chills running down my spine, I had hot flushes as well, but my hands got cold and my knees were shaking so bad and my lips were trembling, I was sandwiched in between Manuel and Charis and I glanced at them both and I was comforted by the fact that both of them are experiencing the same thing with their bodies.

While watching, it was both a mix of reality and fantasy for me. I thought that I wouldn’t be surprised anymore if I watch it on a big screen (projector) since I’ve watched it several times and edited it with my friends but it turned out that having it watched with an audience that are film enthusiasts as well presses all the nervous buttons of my system. Manuel, Charis and I were all aware of everyone’s reactions toward the film and it burns our hearts with love, happiness and gratefulness when we all saw that the audience were enjoying what they see, most were laughing at the crazy antics dropped by Borge’s character, Nico, most people, in my honest and unbiased opinion fell in love with Dayanica’s role, Ana, we found people banging to the song Chill Pill of Quickletsgo! because it’s that catchy, we also found people swooning over the light but lovey dovey feel of our film. And to top it all of, the audience cheered and clapped so loud when the credits were rolling. Our hearts were jumping for joy… And we all wanted to pee at the same time. :))

"Hindi po ako si Dayanica!" Manuel had to get the award for Dayanica. Heeheehee.

When we all saw the entries, it was time for awarding already. I wasn’t expecting our film to win any award, but I wouldn’t lie when I found myself hoping that we would receive just a single award. When it was time for awarding, I didn’t expect that there would also be nominations per category! I just thought that the emcee would mention the winner and just throw the award to the winner… But, yes, there are indeed nominations per category… And out of all the 8 categories, our film, Gusto Da Ka, was nominated 7 times. Seven. We weren’t totally expecting our film to be nominated that much! And there were a lot of entries to choose from as nominees, but apparently the judges (who are big times, by the way) chose our film to be part of it. It was a big deal for all of us when snippets of our film are being shown when the nominees for those 7 categories are being shown because we didn’t expect that much; we are actually content with being part of the official entries for this year alone. But evidently, God has a lot of in store for us. Being part of the nominees and being lined up with the best films say a lot for us. It was sheer bliss. It’s also a bonus that our muse in the film, Dayanica, bagged the best actress award. We were all so happy. We are still so happy.  

Congratulations also to the Matas team and to Earl for being the best actor! With Mr. Tantingco. :) 

I still feel like I’m floating… After the awarding when we were invited to eat at the Museo I was just spacing off when my eyes were drawn to the sky lanterns up the sky and I immediately nudged everyone to watch the lanterns fly up the sky that night. It was beautiful. Just like what just happened with our team.

With Mr. Jason Paul Laxamana. Thank you sir for letting us pass our film even though it was already pass the deadline and for letting us submit a better copy and for making the CineKabalen Kapampangan Film Festival happen.

The Snooze Productions! I am so proud of us... I love you, guys. :')