Baka Naman Hindi returns at the CCP

After a successful limited run in October last year, Baka Naman Hindi returns once again this April 25-28,2019 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino).

Adapted to Filipino by Virgilio “Beer” Flores from Georges Feydeau's La Puce à l'oreille/A Flea in Her Ear, the play is a classic farce filled with innuendo, physical comedy and snappy dialogue.

Rina Reyes and Ricky Davao
Photo by Kiko Cabuena

The cast is led by Ricky Davao and Rina Reyes. They are joined by Rafa-Siguion Reyna, Tex Ordoñez-De Leon, Nazer Salcedo, Randy Villarama, Raffy Tejada, Wenah Nagales, Lao Rodriguez, Mosang, Jonathan “Tad” Tadioan, Marco Viaña, Jef Henson Dee, Felipe “Ronnie” Martinez, Kathlyn Castillo and Aldo Glenn Vencilao.

The creative team is headed by CCP President Arsenio “Nick” Lizaso as producer, Dennis Marasigan as director and lighting designer, Ohm David as set designer, James Reyes as costume designer and, TJ Ramos as sound designer. Lizaso directed the play when it was first staged at the CCP back in the 1970’s.

The opening night of Baka Naman Hindi also serves as the 6th installment of Les Jeudis Culturels/Cultural Thursdays, a monthly cultural rendez-vous initiative of the Embassy of France and Alliance Française de Manille.

Winning children's choirs in NAMYCA concert at the Ayala Museum

BREAKING:
Due to unforeseen circumstances the Davao Girls Choir will not be able to perform as originally scheduled. 

Please rest assured that the concert will push through with a full repertoire from the Miriam College Middle School Chorus, Balon Dagupan Children's Choir, and the Loboc Children's Choir.

The National Music Competitions for Young Artists (NAMCYA) and the Ayala Museum present Pandayan ng Pag-asa, the next installment of the Alab ng Musika series, on April 25, 2019, 6:30 PM at the Ayala Museum.

This concert will feature some of the winners of the Children's Choir Category at the NAMCYA namely the Davao Girl's Choir with choirmaster Maria Elena Barradas Gementiza, Miriam College Middle School Chorus with choirmaster Sinamar Pascua Respicio, Balon Dagupan Children's Choir with choirmaster Jean Llamas Mendoza, and Loboc Children's Choir with choirmaster Lea Claudia Cal.

An educational Beethoven evening with the ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra

Joshua Dos Santos and the ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor Joshua Dos Santos led the ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of two Beethoven symphonies that not only delighted the predominantly young audience that filled the Dolphy Theater, but also served as further education for a more enjoyable concert experience.

Before the performance began, Joshua gave the audience a brief background on Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Op. 60 and the more popular and frequently performed symphonies that preceded and followed it. He stressed the importance of thinking the fourth as a transition to Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, undeniably the most popular symphony out there. And that whatever baffles the audience with the fourth with its less than dramatic and majestic music will fall into place and finally make sense once he/she gets listens to the fifth 

Conductor Joshua Dos Santos gives a pre-concert talk

As for me, this was a new way of approaching the fourth since I always regarded it as an unusual follow up to the epic, revolutionary third symphony. Instead of further revolutionizing the symphony, it seemed to harken back to the second. So in this concert, I had the fifth in mind (instead of the second and the third) while listening to the fourth.

Joshua conducted the orchestra with such vigor as if he had a Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra sized battalion of strings at his disposal. Despite the small number of the strings, he was able to bring out a full, robust sound from them without sacrificing precision.

Joshua Dos Santos "conducts" the audience on how to applaud

After the concert, an audience unaccustomed to how applause is usually done was "conducted" by Joshua. He said that while it is not cool to applaud in between movements, it is definitely cool to clap loudly during the curtain call and while the soloists from the orchestra are acknowledged. And proving how effective of a conductor he is, the audience was able to pick this up and I am confident that they will applaud in a cool way when they watch their next concert.

Italian films, actors, and directors at Moviemov 2019

Roll out the red carpet as Moviemov: Italian Cinema Now returns this April 23-26, 2019 at the Cinematheque Centre Manila at the Film Development Council of the Philippines.

Now in its fifth edition here in the country, Moviemov this year will focus on Authors of Cinema of Reality, featuring a selection of eight of the most representative and awarded movies of the last cinema season namely Una questione privata/Rainbow – A Private Affair, Manuel, Saremo giovanj e bellisimi/We'll Be Young and Beautiful, C'è tempo, Il cratere/Crater, La paranza dei bambini/Piranhas, Selfie, and Troppa grazia/Lucia's Grace. The festival will also pay tribute to Bernardo Bertolucci through the screening of The Dreamers. The films will be in their original Italian language with English subtitles. Admission is for free on a first come, first served basis.

Aside from the screenings, the festival will also see the arrival of a delegation from Italy composed of directors Silvia Luzi, Luca Bellino and Agostino Ferrente, actors Lorenzo Richelmy and Federica Sabatini, film critic Mario Sesti, and film producer Daniele Orazi. They will present their respective films at the screenings while some will conduct masterclasses for the educational component of the festival.

Moviemov: Italian Cinema Now is created and directed by Goffredo Bettini and organized by Playtown Roma, the Moviemov is realized thanks to the MIBACT (Directorate-General for Cinema of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism) and SIAE (the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers), with the collaboration of the Italian Embassy in Philippines, the Philippine Italian Association, and the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP).

Here are the selection of films for Moviemov: Italian Cinema Now 2019.

Una questione privata/Rainbow – A Private Affair

Director: Vittorio Taviani, Paolo Taviani

Cast: Luca Marinelli, Lorenzo Richelmy, Valentina Bellè, Francesca Agostini, Jacopo Olmo Antinori

Summer 1943, Piedmont, Italy. Milton loves Fulvia who plays with his love: she only likes the depth of his thought and the letters he writes to her. One year later, Milton has joined the Resistance and fights beside other partisans. He learns during a conversation that Fulvia was secretly in love with his friend Giorgio, a partisan like him. Milton decides to go find Giorgio in the Langhe region and its misty hills… But Giorgio has just been arrested by the Fascists.

Manuel

Director: Dario Albertini

Cast: Andrea Lattanzi, Francesca Antonelli, Renato Scarpa, Giulia Elettra Gorietti, Raffaella Rea

Manuel has just turned 18. It is time to leave the foster home where he has lived for the past years, after his mother went to prison. But the newfound freedom is bittersweet. Roaming the streets of his desolate neighborhood, alone with his hopes and fears, Manuel tries to leave the teenager behind and become a responsible adult. He must prove to the authorities that he can look after his mother if she is granted house arrest. Can he give her back her freedom, without losing his?

Saremo giovani e belissimi/We'll Be Young and Beautiful

Director: Letizia Lamartire

Cast: Barbora Bobulova, Alessandro Piavani, Massimiliano Gallo, Federica Sabatini, Elisabetta De Vito

Isabella still sings Tic Tac, the song that made her famous in the early nineties, when she was only seventeen. Her place is the Big Star, which has also become her second home. Her young son Bruno is her guitarist. The two are inseparable, they perform every night together and they share a ramshackle but happy life of unpaid bills and midnight strolls around the city. Bruno, however, dreams of a different musical career.

Light touches of comedy and the music bring to life the slow but necessary separation between mother and son, a crucial and painful detachment. Just like the end of any other love story.

C'è tempo

Director: Walter Veltroni 

Cast:  Stefano Fresi, Giovanni Fuoco, Simona Molinari, Francesca Zezza, Jean-Pierre Léaud

Stefano is a 40 year old with two different jobs: staring at rainbows and guardian of a mirror that reflects the sunbeams illuminating the town of Viganella, where he just moved with his wife Luciana.

While he is guarding the mirror, a notary comes to Stefano giving him the tuition of a kid, Giovanni, that appears to be his brother - one of the many children his father gave birth. The two different brothers start to know each other and the story turns out to be a road movie between Emilia Romagna and Tuscany in the centre of Italy.

Il cratere/Crater

Director: Silvia Luzi, Luca Bellini 

Cast: Sharon Caroccia, Rosario Caroccia, Tina Amariutei, Assunta Arcella, Imma Benvenuto

In a cursed land, a father uses his daughter and her voice to take on the world and his own destiny. But success becomes an obsession, and talent becomes a punishment. Crater is a Disney fairy tale in reverse.

La paranza dei bambini/Piranhas

Director: Claudio Giovannesi 

Cast: Francesco Di Napoli, Artem Tkachuk, Alfredo Turitto, Viviana Aprea, Valentina Vannino

Naples. Nicola and his friends are fifteen years old. They want to make money, buy designer clothes and brand new scooters. They play with weapons and ride around the city to take power in the district of Sanità. They love each other like family, they don’t fear prison nor death, knowing their only chance is to risk everything, now. They experience war with the irresponsibility of adolescence, but their criminal activities soon lead them to the irreversible sacrifice of love and friendship.

Selfie

Director: Agostino Ferrente

Naples, Traiano district. Initially it had to be a temporary peripheral destination for the inhabitants of the slums on the seafront of Naples, left homeless after the war. But the lodgings were permanently occupied, including the basement cellars, and soon the district became a sort of ghetto. Alessandro and Pietro are two 16-years-olds who film themselves with a smartphone to tell their difficult neighborhood, their everyday life, the friendship that binds them.

They also tell of the tragedy of Davide, their neighbor who was killed innocent by a carabiniere after a chase, because he was mistaken for a fleeing wanted. He was sixteen too. It happened to Davide, but it could also happen to Alessandro or Pietro... That's why the director gave them his smartphone, asking them to film themselves in "selfie" mode, as if they looked in a mirror themselves, their world, their life.

Troppa grazia/Lucia's Grace

Director: Gianni Zanasi

Cast: Alba Rohrwacher, Elio Germano, Giuseppe Battiston, Hadas Yaron, Carlotta Natoli

Single working mother Lucia is trying to find the right balance between life with her teenage daughter, a complicated romance and her career as a land surveyor. Lucia’s future is jeopardized when she realizes that an ambitious new building is environmentally dangerous due to the city council’s inaccurate maps. Lucia is torn by her decision to keep her mouth shut for fear of losing her job. A mysterious foreign woman tries to convince Lucia to stand up to her superiors and recommend a church as the only solution for the troubled building site. Lucia’s belief in miracles will soon be put to the test.

The Dreamers

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci

Cast: Michael Pitt, Louis Garrel, Eva Green, Robin Renucci, Anna Chancellor

Left alone in Paris whilst their parents are on holiday, Isabelle and her brother Theo invite fellow student Matthew, a young American, to stay at their apartment. Here they make their own rules as they experiment with each other’s emotions and sexuality, playing a series of increasingly demanding mind games. Set against the turbulent political backdrop of France in Spring 1968, when the voice of youth was reverberating around Europe, The Dreamers is a story of self-discovery as the three students test one another to see just how far they each will go. From the novel The Holy Innocence by Gilbert Adair.

Here is the screening schedule for Moviemov 2019.

April 23, 2019 (Invitational)

7:30 PM Una questione privata/Rainbow – A Private Affair

April 24, 2019

5:00 PM Manuel

7:00 PM Selfie

April 25, 2019

11:00 AM The Dreamers

5:00 PM Saremo giovani e belissimi/We'll Be Young and Beautiful

7:00 PM Il cratere/Crater

April 26, 2019

3:00 PM C'è tempo

5:00 PM Troppa grazia/Lucia's Grace

7:00 PM La paranza dei bambini/Piranhas