Brillante Mendoza’s Ma’ Rosa will be shown in GenSan

   SM City General Santos in collaboration with Brillante Mendoza will launch the Brillante Mendoza Film Festival (BMFF) which will feature the International Award-Winning Film- Ma' Rosa this coming December 6, 2016, 5 pm, at SM City General Santos Event Center. It will be followed by a film screening of Ma’ Rosa on December 7, 2016 at SM GenSan Cinema 1 and 2, 8 am. 

   The film is about ROSA, who owns a small community convenient store connected to their home in the slums of Metropolitan Manila. Together with her husband, NESTOR, they use their convenient store as cover-up for selling illegal narcotic, Methamphetamines. Their fate changes when their neighbor sets them up for a police raid leading to the couple’s arrest - a ploy for extortion. Backed against the wall, Rosa seeks help from her children, JACKSON, RAQUEL, and KERWIN as they do the daunting task to buy their parent’s freedom.

   “The idea of this film came up four years ago when I became indirectly involved with the said incident. It captures my interest to tell this story because it shows a unique but also disturbing characteristic of a common Filipino family. That when a family member is backed against the wall for the wrong doings that he or she made, you will do everything to keep them out of trouble even if it means violating basic virtuous. In a society where survival of the fittest is a fact that we have to live with, family becomes amoral,” says Mendoza. 

   Ma’ Rosa is one of the films that competed in the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. It garnered the Best Actress award for Jaclyn Jose. The fans of Brillante Mendoza will have a chance to meet and greet with the renowned Director. They will also have a chance to ask him about his latest film. 

photo source peopleasia.ph

   Brillante Ma. Mendoza started as a production designer in various films and television advertisements. His debut film, Masahista (The Masseur) won the Golden Leopard Award at the 2005 Locarno International Film Festival, and paved the way for the rise of alternative cinema in the Philippines.

   In 2005, he founded Center Stage Productions (CSP), an independent film production company. Mendoza continues to make films and documentaries that depict the lives of the Filipinos and the marginalized sectors of society, cultivating an audience for alternative cinema in the Philippines. His films are shown in different schools all over the country. One of which is Manoro (The Teacher), a film now part of the Philippine Department of Education’s teaching modules. Brillante Mendoza is the first Filipino director to be honored by France with the title Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres.

   “Independent filmmaking is a sign of cultural growth. Film in the Philippines cannot be left the way it is. Filipino filmmakers will always have different stories to tell, different ways of storytelling, or different visual styles. Each filmmaker attempts to show his own story in an original way. You take a story and share it, or you share it tomorrow to the next generation. If independent filmmaking dies, then the other important stories will never be told; stories that are brushed off because they will not sell to the present audience,” says Marilou M. Consad, Public Relations Officer of SM City GenSan. 

   “Independent film promotes to appreciate our culture, the social reality, art, and self – expression of the filmmaker incorporated within those films. Many people will raise their value of individuality, portrayal of our philosophy, conveyed messages, cinematography, art expression, and (or) moral lessons that come from the certainty of life,” she adds.

   For more information, you may contact Ms. Marilou M. Consad with this number - +63 83 878 0667 local 116 or +63 917 898 6218. 

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