Pinoy filmmaker in Cannes Directors' Fortnight

Auraeus Solito's "Busong" is among 21 feature films in this year's Cannes Directors' Fortnight. The selection was announced on April 19 at noon on its official site. His fifth feature film, Busong, is the first Palawanon indigenous film. Its title is the Palawan concept of fate or instant karma, and the film focuses on how nature reacts instantly to man's disrespect of nature and other men. In Busong, Alessandra de Rossi plays Punay, who is born with wounds on her feet and cannot step on the earth. Her brother, Angkarang, carries her through a hammock, as he searches the changing landscape of Palawan in hopes of finding a healer who can cure Punay. Different people help him carry his sister along the way – a woman looking for her husband, a fisherman who lost his boat, and a young man who is searching for himself – and each one meets their fate. Shot in Palawan and written by Kanakan-Balintagos and Henry Burgos, the cast includes Clifford Banagale, Rodrigo Santikan, Bonivie Budao, Vincent Magbanua, Mina Tesorio, and Dax Alejandro. Artistic director Frédéric Boyer says Busong transcends the border between documentary and fiction. "The film deals with animism and is very close to nature. It has been shot without any apparent wish to be selected in Cannes or to be picked by a co-producer," he says in his comments on this year's selection. Solito, though born outside of tribal land, comes from a lineage of Shaman-Kings from the Palawan tribe. He is one of the leading independent filmmakers from the Philippines, and is not new to international acclaim. His first feature film "The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros" won 15 international awards, and has brought Solito to Montreal, Toronto, Okinawa, Utah, Berlin, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, New York, Las Palmas, Spain, Sydney, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Warsaw, and London. The feature film was also named one of the Ten Best Films of the Decade (2000-2009) by Gawad Urian. "Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros" was followed by "Tuli" (2006), "Pisay" (2008) and "Boy" (2009). Keeping the good news for weeks Solito was informed that his film was in the selection two weeks ago, but he could not share the news until the selection was officially revealed yesterday. "It was so hard to keep it for two weeks," said Solito, who was speechless when he first received the good news. "I was playing Plants vs Zombies when the e-mail came in. My hands were so cold. It was one of those unexpected gifts," he said, adding that his mother had even gone to St. Jude Church to pray a novena. "I was told that I would be happy for the first three days, after that it's a lot of hard work," says Solito. He said the team had to get to work immediately in order to meet the technical requirements, since they had submitted a rough cut. "Ang daming technical requirements. Last week, nag picture lock kami, the other day we were refining the sound mix, next week we'll be doing color correction," he said, adding that with a fifty-percent discount from Roadrunner, the film would meet the deadliest deadline. "Luckily, I have a very good technical team. I want to prove that we can come up with a world class digital cinema package," he says. "This is actually my dream film," Solito told GMA News Online. He said one of the stories in the film was inspired by the tale of a woman searching the forest for the sound of a chainsaw. When his aunt told him the story in 1994, he drew it using stick figures. "For the first time, I saw the world in frames," he said. He calls Busong a trilogy within a trilogy. The story based on a Palawan myth of Punay and her brother threads three chapters together: forest, sea and mountain. "Each chapter contains a busong," Solito said. Busong will premiere in July in the Directors Showcase of Cinemalaya, which funded the film. Cannes Directors' Fortnight pays attention to the annual international production of fiction features, short films and documentaries. It is the only section at Cannes that is open to the public. The films selected at the Directors' Fortnight may receive the Camera d'Or prize. Other Filipino filmmakers who have been featured in the Directors' Fortnight are Raya Martin for "Now Showing" and Brillante Mendoza for "Foster Child." — LBG, GMA News