Philippine Asian News Today Vol 20 No 18 | Page 14

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PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY September 16 - 30, 2018
VIFF 2018 Features Two Filipino Indie Films
The Vancouver International
Film Festival announced its run from
September 27 to October 12, 2018.
The festival will feature Canadian films
as well as workshops and talks from
the artists, directors and supporters
of the VIFF. This year, the festival will
feature two Filipino-Canadian Indie
films entitled Nervous Translation and
When The Storm Fades.
This year’s Filipino -Canadian
entries are from Shireen Seno
and Sean Devlin. Immersing the
viewers in an indie version of Wes
Anderson cuteness, Shireen Seno’s
Nervous Translation is set in a Manila
bungalow bursting with artifacts of
80s nostalgia. Here, eight-year-old
Yael (Jana Agoncillo) makes miniature
meals for her dollhouse and pines for
her absent dad and other Overseas
Filipino Worker relatives. Raised in
Japan by OFW parents, Seno is able to
capture the heartaches of the Filipino
diaspora through the eyes of a lonely
child’s nervous incomprehension of
familial and national hardships. It won
the Rotterdam NETPAC Award.
Shireen Seno won the Asian
Talent Award for Best Script Writer
at the 21st Shanghai International
Film Festival, for Nervous Translation.
The Japan-born Filipino filmmaker
accepted the award on in Shanghai,
where her film was also screened for
the festival. The film received several
other nominations at the SIFF’s Asian
New Talent Awards, including Best
Actress for Jana Agoncillo, and Best
Cinematography for Albert Banzon,
Jippy Pascua, and Dennese Victoria.
In addition to its SIFF win, Nervous
Translation has won several other
awards in other international festivals,
including the NETPAC Award for Best
Asian Film at the 2018 Rotterdam
Film Festival in January, and the
Critics’ Award at the Olhar de Cinema
Curitiba International Film Festival in
Brazil earlier in June. The film also
won for Best Sound at the FAMAS
Awards 2018, where it was nominated
for Best Picture, Best Director, Best
Production Design, and Best Editing.
Nervous Translation will be screened
on Tuesday, October 9, 6:30 pm, at
The Cinematheque, and on Thursday
on October 11, 3:15 pm, at the Vancity
Theatre.
When The Storm Fades is
a provocative docudrama
from
Sean Devlin, where a Filipino family
reenacts their own experiences of
resolutely rebuilding their homes and
lives in the
wake of the
devastation
wrought
by 2013’s
Hurricane
Yo l a n d a .
Not helping
matters
are
two
ineffectual
foreign aid
workers
( K a y l a
Lorette
and Aaron
Read) who
aren’t quite
the
white
saviours