20/12/2019
Thank you, The Catalyst!
Catch 'PAMANA NI LOLA' on the 25th of December at the Metro Manila Film Festival alongside Brillante Mendoza's 'MINDANAO'.
𝐏𝐔𝐏 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐄𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐌𝐌𝐅𝐅
“Never judge a character but instead embrace it,” this has been Shaira Colanse’s mantra as she embraced the role of Alisa in PUP’s own film “Pamana ni Lola” in the Student Short Film Category of Metro Manila Film Fest (MMFF) on December 25, 2019.
Alisa, a teenager who has a journey towards womanhood finds difficulty on her situation. With her old and archaic family, she is torn on whether to live accordingly or abandon her family and live on her own.
The young film maker, Bradley Jason Pantajo said that the idea popped into his mind during the summer break and out of boredom he came across the theme given by MMFF 2019 which is “Philippine Mythology and Regional Stories (Myths, Legends and Folktales)”.
"I want to do something kaya nag-research ako kung anong story ang pwede sa theme. Eh bakit pa ako lalayo, I live in Rodriguez, Rizal. Sa lugar namin medyo probinsiya so naniniwala sila sa manananggal. Ang manananggal daw diba hati ang katawan at kumakain ng tao pero ano bang bago na pwede kong ilagay sa buhay ng manananggal para maging mas malalim at interesting siya,” he recalled.
Despite being challenged on how to start the story, Pantajo thought of situations after his research about manananggal. “What if those creatures at some point in their lives, they are not just monsters? Na hindi lang kumakain ng tao pero kahit papano na sa kahit isang pagkakataon naging tao talaga sila na may nararamdaman at marunong magmahal. That’s how ‘Pamana ni Lola’ started,” he shared.
The freshmen student also shared that what made the production more difficult is the script which was lengthy for a five-minute video. The creative collaboration of Bradley Jason Pantajo and Regin De Guzman, both from Bachelor of Arts in Performing Arts has written and bring the script to life in a short span of time. Talented Shaira Colanse, also a performing arts student in PUP, took the lead role as Alisa.
The production team’s schedule was hard since they are not classmates and to add to that, some are having their part time job. “It’s good that we have the same goal to shoot the film even when sometimes it gets complicated. We needed to be calm and so we made time and extra effort to work on it.”
Sixteen semifinalists were initially selected out of 126 scripts submitted for the MMFF 2019 Student Short Film Category. The list was trimmed down to eight finalists, whose films will be shown in cinemas together with the full-length entries on December 25, 2019 to January 7, 2020. They were given 20,000 pesos seed money to shoot their short film.
The Gabi ng Parangal of the 2019 MMFF will be held on December 27, 2019. With a hope to bag the award for Best Short Film, it will be the greatest leap and a perfect present for the Sintang Paaralan before the year ends.
Article by Thania Florendo
The official poster is provided by Antiparas Production
