Tribes Go To War

Buzz is building ahead of next month's Cinemalaya Film Festival in the Philippines, with a strong looking competition line-up, and one title in particular piquing the interest of the local press. Jim Libiran's debut feature Tribu [Tribes] looks set to be a raw, hard-hitting portrayal of teenage gangs in Manila's tough district of Tondo, which earned some coverage in the papers when it transpired that the Tondo-raised director had sourced his entire cast from real-life gang members through a poster calling for teenagers to audition, resulting in some of Tondo's 100 some gangs being represented on film (read more in the Philippine Inquirer). The film looks at the street and gang life of youths through the eyes of a ten year old, and if advance word is to be believed, comparisons to City of God might not be too wide of the mark, and even if not it will certainly provide a nice point of comparison with Ato Bautista's powerful tale of urban disaffection Awaken, now available to view on Firecracker TV.

Libiran has used local hip hop artists for the movie's soundtrack to complete the package for Tribu. All in all, it's one to look forward to. Check out a slide show of images from the movie here. And there's a link to Libiran's earlier short film on a similar theme Pancit Canton over at Twitch.

Tribu is not the only one of the ten finalists that look promising...

2,999 (James Ladioray), set in 1986 on the fall of the Marcos dictatorship, tells the story of a young boy who comes into possession of one pair of Imelda Marcos' 3000 pairs of shoes. Ladioray scripted the acclaimed black comedy Cut.

Tukso (Dennis Marasigan), the next work from the director of the acclaimed digital drama Sa North Diversion Road (2005), which was based on a well-known play. Tukso takes a Rashomon style approach to the different versions of events that surface during the investigation into a girl's death.

Gima (The Goat) by Adolfo B. Alix Jr., marks the return to Cinemalaya of the director of Donsol, which scooped a couple of awards in the 2006 edition. The busy Alix was also recently announced as an awardee of the Cinema One Originals programme.

Pisay (Auraeus Solito), the third film from the director of The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveiros and Tuli (Berlin Film Festival 2007). Pisay is a school drama set in the 80s.

Endo (Jade Castro) follows a young man trapped in a succession of dead-end short term jobs when forced to drop out of school and provide for his family. Castro wrote the script for Joyce Bernal's ghost comedy D'Anothers, and was a co-producer of The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveiros.

Sinungaling Na Buwan (Ed Lejano Jr.), an unconventional comedy drama about relationships, was based on an award-winning drama, and comes from the director of Seroks, one of the Cinema One Originals movies from last year.

Still Life (Katrina Flores), debut feature from Katrina Flores in which a talented painter discovers he's suffering from a paralyzing disease.

Gulong (Sockie Fernandez), from the director of acclaimed short Liyab, the light-hearted story of a kid who longs to have a bicycle to take a summer trip with his friends.

Ligaw Liham (Jay Abello), another debut feature, is based on true life incident on the provincial island of Negros years ago, when the workers at the post office simply stopped working, cutting villagers off completely from the outside world.

The Cinemalaya competition chooses ten projects at script stage and provides a seed grant of P500K to each. Those behind the initiative include celebrated director Laurice Guillen (American Adobo, Firecracker Philippines, & Santa Santita/ Magdalena, Firecracker Showcase 2005). Last year's winner was Michael Sandejas' Tulad ng Dati, a fictionalisation of the story of real-life 80s Filipino new wave band The Dawn.