The Last Night
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| RAd with Sen. Goffredo Bettini |
As
much as I wanted to go for five straight days and watch as many free movies as
possible, my busy schedule during the weekend prevented me from doing just that.
So I had to accept that I had to miss the third and fourth days of Moviemov: Italian Cinema Now at Greenbelt Philippines
Upon
arriving at the Greenbelt 3 Cinema lobby, I asked friends from the Embassy of
Italy, the Philippine-Italian Association and Rustan’s manning the festival
table how the past couple of days were taking into consideration the weekend
crowd. They reported that the turnout was excellent with the cinemas getting
filled with some people sitting on the stairs. And I was able to see first hand
how people lined up early to get free tickets which were distributed an hour
before the screening time. But less than five minutes after they started giving
away tickets, there were already none left. It was quite sad to see people who
came to the table afterwards asking for tickets only to be disappointed.
Thankfully, I didn’t need to worry about lining up for tickets courtesy of my
media pass.
Moviemov: Italian
Cinema Now Winners
Special Mention
Mine Vaganti
Best Film
Vincere
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| Producer Gianni Paolucci with the Best Film Trophy |
Before
I watched the last film, I first went to the awarding of the winner of the
festival. The jury who eventually chose two winning films (Special Mention and
Best Film) was composed of Nick Deocampo, Mel Chionglo, Raymond Lee, Gil Portes
and Angelo Lacuesta. Senator Goffredo Bettini, who spearheaded Moviemov was
very pleased with the success of the event and remained optimistic that this
would be an annual event that will keep on getting bigger and better. I was
also very satisfied with the festival despite some setbacks like Dario and Asia
Argento not being able to make it and also not knowing if the planned workshop
by film composer Franco Piersanti ever happened. But seeing Pietra Montecorvino
for the three days and being told by her that I have a Neapolitan heart made me
forget the other stuff that didn’t happen.
The Dreamers
The Dreamers,
which was the last film screened during the festival, is not really wholly an
Italian film (a co-production between France, Italy and Great Britain) but this
was included in the festival since this was part of the tribute to noted
Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci. The movie, set in Paris
The
film was very effective in making the audience get lost in the secluded world
created by the protagonists. I did forget the outside world for about a couple
of hours as I got intrigued, stirred and also disturbed by the irrational
behavior and scandalous relationship of the three. There was frontal nudity and
sex scenes but these didn’t bother me at all knowing beforehand what I was
getting into. What bothered me was that I felt older since I got aghast by the
irresponsible behavior of the Isabelle and Théo. In my younger years, I
would’ve relished the journey, the headiness, and the romanticism exhibited by
the three. But strangely, I felt like the parents instead.
The Final Word
I
wish that I was able to maximize every opportunity regarding this film festival
but there were so many events happening during the same week that I had to
employ creative scheduling and budgeting in order to survive this very busy
week. I felt bad that I wasn’t able to see the two winning films from the
festival so I couldn’t say if they were truly deserving of the recognition. Overall,
it was a splendid experience for me since I’ve never attended a film event of
this magnitude before. I am glad that I also had the opportunity to practice my
very rusty Italian which made me want to practice speaking the language more. And it took me towards the end of the festival to have my photo taken with Sen. Goffredo Bettini. It’s odd knowing that the festival is over and that all the buzz and excitement
has already dwindled. But this just makes me anticipate what’s to come and makes me want to sing Libiamo.
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| RAd with Pietra Montecorvino |
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