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From the director’s statement: about 70 percent of deaf children are sexually abused in the Philippines regardless of their gender. There are legal and language barriers; many cases are unreported, and as there are very few sign language interpreters in the country, especially in the regions, many cases are dismissed simply because of this lack. Lawrence Fajardo uses these statistics to craft a rather pointed drama that also attempts to present how the world is experienced by deaf-mute individuals.

The Hearing is screening at New York Asian Film Festival

The opening scene, in which a deaf girl’s testimony about a murder is completely dismissed, sets the tone for the narrative and introduces us to Maya, a sign language interpreter who lives with her deaf-mute aunt and a husband who frequently abuses her. The setting then shifts to a small fishing village, where Lucas, a deaf-mute boy, is sexually abused by Fr.

Armando Lao's Ad Ignorantiam can be divided into three unequal parts. The first part, tediously shot real time, details one afternoon in a busy city intersection where a hapless victim (Ina Feleo) of purse snatching, and her friend (Kimmy Maclang) confusedly scour nearby nooks and alleyways for the snatcher. They end up accusing a man (Kristoffer King), who was at the wrong place in the wrong time, of the crime. The second part, which serves to frame the first part within the structure of a court proceeding, displays an methodical and undramatic depiction of what happens inside courtrooms, where the frazzled characters, who are now litigants, of the first part are now joined by lawyers (Racquel Villavicencio and Allan Paule), a judge (Archie Adamos), and...

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There's one scene in Laurice Guillen's Maskara where Ina Feleo, playing Anna, the illegitimate daughter of accomplished actor Bobby (Tirso Cruz III) who recently passed away, suddenly weeps. Guillen does not opt for an extreme close-up of her daughter's face. Instead, Feleo is seen from a comfortable distance, allowing her to overwhelm the frame with just There's something strangely haunting about Feleo's performance. It is more than good within the scope of the film's narrative. It is actually very moving on its own, encompassing emotions as varied as sorrow and anger, regret and acceptance.   Feleo's father and Guillen's husband, the great actor Johnny Delgado, died in 2009. While Feleo and fictional Anna were born under different circumstances, they share common emotions, of longing...

Jose Javier Reyes' Working Girls is a disappointment. Just like the counterfeit bags one of Reyes' characters peddles to her internet clients, the film hardly matches the 1984 Ishmael Bernal satire with the same title that it supposedly updates. Even if independently assessed of Bernal's acclaimed urban comedy, Working Girls is still an unforgivably incoherent, annoyingly shallow, and ultimately pointless exercise. In an interview, Reyes admits that this film was made as a sort of tribute to Bernal and Amado Lacuesta, screenwriter of the 1984 comedy. Given Reyes' intentions for writing and directing this update of Bernal's classic, I can only conclude that this films' biggest achievement is that it will inevitably raise awareness of the existence of Bernal's film, and hopefully gain for it more followers.

 

Perhaps my displeasure for Reyes' film is a tad exaggerated. Reyes, I admit, is a very smart and able writer whose gift for gab...