It's the weekend and after the really fun Puregold Cinepanalo Film Festival Awards Night, we took time to watch the student short films this Sunday afternoon before they end screenings.
Short films are, short. If you couldn't get your point or story across, I would feel it would fail, I think the few ones I saw were actually good. Super happy about how Puregold Cinepanalo Film Festival became a great platform for regional film makers to showcase what they can do despite the odds. I didn't even need to read the subtitles in order to understand them.
Dito, Dati was about memories. They had a short film made on VHS recorded tapes but in the end they lost it all. Then they reminisced where it all happened, how it happened. It played on family ties, filial love and what lengths you would go for them.
Ritche Films Production on the other hand offered Sine Sine, a short film about friends in the Bicolano dialect. A supposed date plan was about to go into shambles because the local movie house called Obet's Sine Sine was closing down. It was cute, mostly about puppy love. When the plan to watch a movie didn't pan out, they made their own film. Obet's Sine Sine was back in business, and the date continued. It made the folks inside the cinema giggle. No wonder this won awards. Their soundtrack was fun and catchy too.
Daog/Pildi was another regional short film. In Cebuano, they get to tell the adventures they had in arcade gaming (a thing I adore). It was old school, had a little cute and romantic story line.
SAMPIE was eye candy. It's a coming of age film that had elements of a cartoon (in 2D) about a mermaid, a gay one. It's also about family and the little joys of life. It is also about acceptance. Pretty good short film, no wonder it won awards too.
"Our One and Only Baboy" was about an elderly couple, one stricken with cancer but chose to give up and just enjoy his vices. The lone pig was opted to be sold for money, for his medical needs and finances... But they treated it like their child (they didn't have kids). His wife was not so keen in doing it. The film has flaws, the panning shots made me dizzy, but it was certainly a touching film. It's about dreams, the idea of true happiness, love and what matters most.
If you can catch the other films today, go do it. Or maybe wait for a future release in platforms, because from the looks of it, they've got a lot of people out there that would really appreciate it.
Thanks to Puregold who's doing this annually, the ones who made it possible to showcase regional films in actual cinemas. I loved the shorts!
