SINAG MAYNILA Features TALAHIB with Kristof Garcia and Gillian Vicencio

Watched one of the featured films in Sinag Maynila called TALAHIB, a film directed by critically acclaimed director Alvin Yapan and produced by FEAST foundation. It's English title Legend of the Tall Grass tells a lot about where most of the incidents happen since this is a slasher film. 

The elements are there, but since this is an Alvin Yapan film, the story telling felt a lot different from usual. If it were heavily commercial, it could have taken a route of violence all throughout but since it delves more into lore, detective work and their past wrongdoings, you would need to understand more of the conversations in order to decipher it. It did not depend on violence alone, it had elements of mental anguish, ghosts and indestructible beings as villains in the story. 

Alvin Yapan says "I am so nervous about what we will see this afternoon, and at the same time excited that after a long while, we will be finally seeing this with the producers and the audience, and I hope they get to like what they could see in our film. We are planning to have this be shown in other platforms, that's also our goal." 

He adds "This is the first time that the actors will be seeing the film (except playbacks). This is now complete with editing and sound, I hope those who would see this film appreciate the work we put in to hopefully spread the word about TALAHIB. We plan to put this in cinemas too on October for Halloween. This is R13, which we were gunning for. Hopefully we could get everyone to watch it, we didn't want it to be plainly a gorefest. I'd want Gillian to get a Best Actress nomination for her work here. I also gave Kristoff his time to shine in this project, and I've seen how he excellently is making drama executed too. (Spoiler) You'll see a long scene with Gillian showcasing her command on screen. This is an ensemble piece, but they have their own moments, their own spotlights that movie goers should watch out for."  

Kristoff says "Gillian and I are really okay even after the shoot. It's been a year but we still stay in touch. We go out in groups sometimes, to bond over karaoke at times. Even before this project, I've already been able to watch Gillian in films. I know how great she is as an actress. I was really excited to work with her. When I saw her, I didn't know she was going to be that warm in person. She's also very kind, very pretty."

Gillian tells us "Of course I'm so happy to hear that from our director. The chance to work with him was already an honor, getting complements is just extra. I'm excited because this is also my first time to watch it on screen. We can't expect to win awards, so we don't get hurt in the end. I got recommended by Ms. Irma Adlawan and I'd like to thank her for that. We made this last year and we can't wait to see how it pans out on screen. I'm excited about TALAHIB even more because I'm not the one who's scaring people. I'm the one who's getting scared. It was also hard to shoot on location because you'll get to experience the sharp tall grass, it's real and you will experience getting nicked by its sharp blades every now and then."

Here's our video coverage of the premiere:

Congratulations to the Filipino Excellence in the Arts, Sciences and Technologies Foundation and other producers. This film certainly has that Alvin Yapan print on it. This will be shown in Gateway Mall, Robinsons Malls, SM Cinemas, and Market Market. Just check cinema schedules if you're raring to watch it on SINAG MAYNILA.

Saving Dying Dialects: Lessons from HULAGWAY

I took the lovely trip to Cinema 76 at Anonas in Quezon City to see Director Alvin Yapan's latest work called HULAGWAY: Dokyumentaryo ng mga Wika at Kulturang Filipino (A documentary of Filipino Language and Culture) a few days ago. Dr. Yapan was tapped by the National Commitee on Language amd Translation under the offices of NCCA (The National Comission for the Culture and the Arts) to direct this film. 

Hulagway means "a portrait" and this film lengthily has taken a look at the person, how one lives, how they communicate with their peers or the community. There are also a lot of metaphorical representation of their struggles, even if they're literally not working with a script, the conversations was molded off how language was used as a tool to enrich lives with stories, songs and poems deeply rooted in culture. 

 

Needless to say, he's a genius when it comes to really complex artsy topics like these and interpreting it for cinema must have been a tall task. His treatment in telling this one is like a documentary. He anchors it with two characters Consuelo (played by Sue Prado) and Robert (which is played by Kalil Almonte). They took the long hard trek to far flung communities in the eastern side of Isabela (up north) and islands off Palawan. 

Imagine, they started this in 2018 and had to work together with only 15 other crew carrying with them loads of equipment to capture unadulterated views, communities and the few men and women who still have a grasp of the dying languages Dupaninan Agta and Tandulanen Tagbanua. This is officially the most difficult film Alvin Yapan has ever made, he made mention of this during the talk we had after the screening. Initially, they had planned to include 6/7 of them (dialects/languages) but the material was too precious to cut off the block. It was also a little too tedious as it involved time consuming research, with little information from various universities (mostly from outside the country) who have conducted studies about them in previous years, they roughed the process of filming and took on talking to the few descendants left who still have a grasp of the language. My favorite scene was the boat traversing a line of mangroves in Palawan, they talked about that on the video.

 

Here's the press conference in two parts where they explained the film and the cause of saving the dialects from these two regions.

During the latter part of the press conference I asked about what concrete plans they have about saving the dying dialect, and they replied that this is just the first step, to become aware, educated, and acknowledge that there is something precious to save. 

The plan is to also have this film be viewed by educational institutions to not just prove its existence, but to formulate a way to find ways to have people teach these dialects and pass on to the next generation. To not lose their identity as IP, and celebrate their uniqueness, their differences, which makes them cool. If this sparks efforts to do so not just from the government, but the citizens of this country, then this film made its mark. Make sure to coordinate with NCCA if you want your school to be part of the film's tour in the coming months. There's more languages/dialects to save in the country, and telling their story is essential.

Make sure to watch it. It'll be life changing!