Philippine Asian News Today Vol 20 no 19 | Page 22

ARTS AND CULTURE
22
PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY October 1 - 15, 2018
Fil-Canadian director wins Fan-Favourite
Award at VIFF 2018
A film documenting a basketball
fan’s search for the NBA equivalent
of Bigfoot has won the fan-favourite
award at the Vancouver International
Film Festival. Finding Big Country,
Kathleen S. Jayme’s documentary
about her search for former Vancouver
Grizzlies star Bryant (Big Country)
Reeves, was selected for the Super
Channel People’s Choice Award as
VIFF 2018 ended its run Friday night
at The Centre for the Performing Arts
in Vancouver.
The story is about Jayme’s
interest in Reeves, who was the first-
round draft pick and early superstar
for the fledgling Grizzlies, a team
that never was very good but was
eventually turned over to Memphis
after the 2000-2001 season. The big
man from small-town Arkansas has
been off the public radar since his
NBA career ended when the team left
town.
“I’ve always wanted to make a
documentary about the Vancouver
Grizzlies and, specifically, Bryant
Reeves,” Jayme said. “It was one of
the projects I knew I wanted to make
in my career, and one of the stories I
wanted to tell. I’m just super-stoked to
share this story.”
In her acceptance speech at the
closing Gala of the VIFF 2018, Jayme
said that hopefully, the documentary
helps get the Grizzlies back to
Vancouver.
The Vancouver based Fil-
Canadian is no stranger to film
festivals and awards. Jayme was at
the Cannes Film Festival in 2015,
presenting a short film she made on
the long-term effects of tourism in
tropical countries. Her film, Paradise
Island, was accepted into the Short
Film Corner at Cannes, a program
pointed as a stepping stone for films
selected by international festivals.
The film focuses on the lives of
a group of children who craft sand
sculptures for cash in Boracay, a small
island in the Philippines that Jayme’s
family regularly visited since she was
three years old. Through the children,
Jayme tells a story about the impact
tourism has on the islanders’ lives and
habitat.
“As tourists, we feel like we’ve
earned this time to do whatever we
want,” Jayme said. “I never cared
about what was going on. I would go
there, relax and then leave the next
day without thinking about anything,
really.” On her visit in 2011, she met
the young subjects of her film. They
had been making sandcastles with
spoons and sticks, then asking for
donations from tourists. The money
bought them food and necessities,
but to get that money they had to
skip school, and
for the first time,
she said she felt
very uncomfortable
about being there.
She began to
notice the effect of
years of tourism on
Boracay, and she
noticed how it got
more polluted and
crowded every year.
Angry about the
situation, she set out
to “show people a
side of paradise they had never seen
before.” When she started filming,
however, she realized the realities of
life on the island. Some locals were
making money from the tourism
industry, feeding their families, and
putting their children into school.
Yet some children were skipping
school and relying on tourists for
their livelihood. Jayme said the film
reminds tourists to be mindful when
they travel, and that these are actually
people’s homes.
The 25-minute short is the first
Jayme made since graduating from
UBC’s film school in 2011, and now
with her VIFF 2018 win, she is now
one of the most recognizable film
makers in the city, and one the Filipino
community is proud of.
Jayme comes from a family of
filmmakers. Her great uncle, Cirio
Santiago, was a director and producer
and her lolo Dan (Danilo Santiago)
was the youngest director in the
Philippines during his time. Their
father, Ciriaco Santiago, founded
Premiere Productions. Jayme comes
from a family of artists which includes
dancer Stephanie Amurao from
Richmond, who performed at the
opening ceremony of the Cannes that
year.
The film fest wrapped up Friday
night, but organizers have announced
a VIFF Repeats series, offering 20
favourites from the annual event, from
Oct. 13 to 19. Finding Big Country
gets its encore on Tuesday, Oct. 16,
at 8:30 p.m. at Vancity Theatre.
Filipina-Canadian Painter Makes U.S. Debut
at Philippine Center in New York
by Paul Gullas
Last Tuesday evening, a crowd
braved heavy rains to gather at the
Philippine Center on Fifth Avenue,
where a Filipina-Canadian visual
artist debuted her first solo exhibition
outside of Canada. Esmie Gayo
McLaren, a Vancouver-based painter,
presented over a dozen watercolor
paintings of figures, landscapes and
scenes of everyday life.
The show, titled Expanding
Horizons,
represents
McLaren
“expanding into the world”, she
explains, both as her solo exhibition
artist, as well as her global travels,
which she had started doing more
frequently in recent years. These
travels brought her to the Philippines.
“It is a celebration of a land I had
rarely experienced, a foreign land
because I left it early in life,” explained
Ms. McLaren, who moved to Canada
when she was twelve. Having grown
up in North America, “visiting the
Philippines, you’re almost like a
tourist,” she said.
Her Agoo Harvest series of
paintings depicts rice workers in the
farmlands surrounding her family’s
home in Ilocos. In one painting, one
woman waits for her share of the rice
next to a worker operating a threshing
machine, while in the foreground, a
laborer approaches them carrying
freshly-cut stalks.
One wall of the exhibit depicts
scenes from a trip to France. Lavande
features rows of lavender planted in
front of Sénanque Abbey in the south
of France. McLaren explained that the
monks sell lavender products to help
pay for the monastery’s upkeep.
Well-wishers and art lovers
surrounded McLaren throughout the
evening, including Consul General
Claro S. Cristobal, who called her “a
pride of the Filipinos.”
McLaren is also a self-described
“flamenco enthusiast,” and three
of the most colorful paintings of
the exhibit are of different styles of
(left to right) Mr. Art Zamora, Ambassador Leslie Gatan, Ms. Aida Bartolome,
dancers.
Mr. Michael McLaren, Ms. Esmie Gayo McLaren, Consul General Claro
Expanding Horizons is presented
Cristobal, Ms. Lenore RS Lim, Mr. Jose R. Lim . Photo by Carlos Esguerra.
by the Lenore RS Lim Foundation
for the Arts, which is registered in both have works currently displayed
the Philippines and has sponsored at the Philippine Embassy in Ottawa,
numerous exhibits in New York Canada, in an exhibit titled Essence,
and Vancouver. Ms. Lim, herself which celebrates the roles, struggles
an acclaimed artist, met McLaren and triumphs of women. Produced
six years ago in Vancouver, where by Ms. McLaren, Essence first opened
they worked on projects together to in North Vancouver and was invited
promote Filipino culture, artists and to travel to Ottawa by Her Excellency
their works. When Lim mentioned her Ambassador Petronila P. Garcia.
New York-based foundation, McLaren
Expanding Horizons is on display
thought it would be “so cool” to be at the Philippine Center New York,
able to exhibit in New York. Planning 556 Fifth Avenue, until September
for the exhibit began in 2016.
28th. McLaren’s work can be found
Lim said of McLaren, “I observed at Jeunesse Gallery of Fine Arts in
that she is not only a good artist, but she Vancouver, and online at https://
is also passionate about connecting esmiegayomclaren.com
communities and women’s issues.”
Ms. McLaren and Ms. Lim also
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