"GAGAMBOY," roughly the Philippine version of "Spider-Man," won the Audience Prize and 15,000 euros (P1,089,300) for its producer, Regal Films, at the recently concluded Utopiales 2004 held in the French town of Nantes.
This was announced by the movie's director, Erik Matti, last Thursday night.
Utopiales 2004 was the fifth edition of the international festival of science fiction that is celebrated every first week of November. Its approach to science fiction touches on other complementary disciplines like literature, visual arts and theater.
Matti told Inquirer Entertainment that the competition in the film genre was open to all productions. Japan's Miike Takashi's "Zebraman" copped the Jury Prize, the other trophy given away by the festival, Matti added.
According to the Website of Utopiales 2004, the other films that competed were "Cutie Honey" by Anno Hideyaki, "Casshern" by Kazuaki Kiriya, "Dragonhead" by Iida, all from Japan, "Incident at Lochness" by Zach Penn of the USA, "Code 46" by Michael Winterbottom of United Kingdom, and "Natural City" by Byun-chun Min of Korea.
"Code 46" starred Hollywood actors Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton.
The festival press kit described "Gagamboy" as the Philippine version of "Spider-Man" or "the funny adventures of the man-spider in the shantytowns of Manila."
Nantes is located in West France on the Loire River. It is an important industrial and shipping center with its ocean port at Saint-Nazaire.
Matti said that aside from France, "Gagamboy" has been screened in film festivals in Hong Kong, Italy, Switzerland, Canda, Korea and Japan. The audiences in the Tokyo Film Festival were particularly enthusiastic about his movie, he said.
"Each film was usually given only two screenings but 'Gagamboy' was shown three times," he beamed.
Matti said Regal Films owner Lily Monteverde suggested bringing "Mano Po 2," which he also directed, instead to international film festivals.
"But I told her that audiences abroad don't like melodramas," he said.
"Mano Po 2" tells the Filipino-Chinese experience through a patriarch (played by Christopher de Leon) who has three conflicting wives. Just like "Gagamboy," it was an entry in last year's Metro Manila Film Festival.
This year, Matti will avoid the rush of movies for the festival as his new work, a horror flick called "Pasiyam," opens on Dec. 1.
There are two entries of the same genre in the December festival-"Spirit of the Glass" and "Sigaw."
Matti said he's also going against the conventional wisdom that says the only horror movies that make money are those shown during the Metro festival, which opens every Christmas Day. Chito Rono's "Feng Shui" broke that spell when it became a blockbuster a couple of months ago.
Matti would rather not compare "Pasiyam" with "Feng Shui" or with the other Asian horror flicks that have been flooding the movie market. Some movies like "The Ring" and "The Grudge" have been successfully remade by Hollywood producers.
"'Pasiyam' is more in the tradition of classics like 'The Exorcist' and 'Rosemary's Baby,'" said Matti. "The story, more than cheap tricks, is its core. I want people to still think about the story even after they leave the theater."
He recalled that he was reading the Dan Brown thriller "Da Vinci Code" during the gestation period of "Pasiyam" so the movie became both a horror story and a whodunit. "It's a simple story," he said. "It doesn't try to be socially relevant. It's very entertaining."
The term 'pasiyam' is derived from a post-burial practice of Filipinos and this sets the tone for the movie. Eerie events start to happen when the siblings led by Roderick Paulate's character come home to the province to bury their mother. Cherry Pie Picache, Anna Capri, Aubrey Miles, Yul Servo, Maricar de Mesa and Cristine Reyes also star.
"Pasiyam" is the initial movie venture of Reality Entertainment, a company that Matti founded with Dondon Monteverde three years ago. They have been negotiating with a distributor to release the movie internationally.
