The 11th edition of Cinemanila International Film Festival has officially started last October 15 and will run up to October 25. Main venue of the film showings is at the Market! Market! Cinemas at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig with pocket screenings at Fully Booked Taguig’s U-View and the open-air outdoor field of Bonifacio High Street.
Due to the rich harvest of Filipino independent films for the past few years till now, the opening and closing films are locally-made. Cannes 2000 Best Director Brillante Mendoza’s Lola opened the festival last week, while Cannes 2000 Palme D’Or (Short Film) winner Raymond Red’s Himpapawid will close the same this coming weekend.
There are several sections to choose movies to watch, namely, the Main Competition, SEA (Southeast Asian) Competition, Digital Lokal, World Cinema, Asian Cinema, World Cinema Fund, Three from Mexico, Singapore Cinema Today, Documentary, Special Screenings, Critics’ Picks and Sights & Signs.
The Main Competition is the most interesting part of the festival, where eleven movies are in contention and they are:
Independencia (Philippines/Germany/France/Netherlands) 77 minutes
Mammoth (Sweden) 125 minutes
Ricky (France) 90 minutes
Tulpan (Kazakhstan) 100 minutes
Cheng Du, I Love You (China) 78 minutes
Samson and Delilah (Australia) 101 minutes
Hunger (UK) 96 minutes
Tony Manero (Chile/Brazil) 98 minutes
Pandora’s Box (Turkey/France/Germany/Belgium) 112 minutes
Milk of Sorrow (Peru) 95 minutes
Machan (Italy/Sri Lanka) 109 minutes
There are some very noteworthy flicks in competition that I would really like to watch like “Mammoth” and “Ricky” being a fan of both Gael Garcia Bernal and French Director Francois Ozon. But other than the 11 movies above, I am just as interested in two of the World Cinema picks, “Coco Avant Chanel” which stars one of my favorites, Audrey Tautou plus Engkwentro by Pepe Diokno which won the Orizzonti Section of the recently-concluded Venice Filmfest.
Here are the ticket infos:
Regular Admission: PHP 120.00
Students: PHP 100.00
Senior Citizen: 20% off Regular Ticket Price
Premiere Screenings: PHP 200.00
Manila Meets Paul Schrader: PHP 250.00
Tickets can be bought in advance through Cinemanila at the Cinemanila Secretariat.
Gold Tickets are priced at PHP 950.00 each and is equivalent to 8 films and the Master Class with Paul Schrader.
So to all film buffs out there, troop to the Market! Market! Cinemas this week to catch these movies and more before the tickets run out!