In Between Panels

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Two new locally produced animated movies are coming soon on the silver screen. The first is Dayo ("Wanderer"), one of eight official entries in this year's Metro Manila Filmfest:

Jessie Lasaten, multi-awarded music composer and arranger for Filipino films "Anak," "Bata, Bata, Paano Ka Ginawa," among others, heads Cutting Edge as its Chief Executive Officer, and Executive Producer of "Dayo." Through the production of "Dayo," he challenges his pool of creative minds, and animators to compete on a regional scale by way of content creation.

Its narrative centers around an 11-year old kid named Bubuy (voiced by Nash Aguas) who is out save his beloved grandparents abducted into Elementalia -- a fantasy land abounding with strange flora and fauna, and a host of popular creatures from Philippine lower mythology.

Bubuy meets Anna manananggirl (voiced by Katrina Legaspi), a hyperactive teener with a special affection for all things human -- but not of a tummy-filling kind. Both Bubuy and Anna take on a wild, will-testing, and wonderfully funny adventure all over Elementalia -- from a massive falls teeming with gravity-defying merfolk; to an awe-inspiring crystal cave that houses a swarm of colorful alitubi; to a grand old tree that's home to a motherly female kapre; and finally to a majestic mountain guarded by a big pack of hungry aswangs.

Sounds interesting. Another animation working on the same premise as "Dayo" is from Creative Media and Film Society of the Philippines (CreaM) set to be shown maybe early next year:

From Bessie Badilla del Castillo, Imee Marcos, Mina Caliguia and a number of very talented Filipino artists from Art Farm Asia, check out this first all-Filipino-talent anime of one of the Philippines' famous folklore "aswang". It is making quite some noise in the international anime scene from Hong Kong to Cannes, France.

Fly Aswang - Filipino animation series based on Philippine Mythology. Against their mother Bessie's wishes, her three Filipina-American daughters travel to Manila for a cousin's wedding. Instead they are trapped in a vampire or aswang ritual and their family's history of supernatural power until Bessie come to save them.
Originally conceptualized for a 13 episode TV series. But because of it's story and the quality of work done by the artists and members of Creative Media Philippines (CreaM), the group is now challenged to make Fly Aswang into a full-length-featured anime with a 90 minute running time. It will still be in Tagalog and Tag-Lish and will be subtitled when it is submitted for international competition.

The original will be in Tagalog except for the three girls, Isabel, Blanca and Ines who will be speaking Tag-Lish. The Hong Kong version (for HK anime/film fest April 2008) will be in English as requested by HK film makers. French version will be in the original format with French subtitles which will premier in Cannes in July 2008. ~ From arkitekfhc's "Fly Aswang" Trailer - An Original Filipino Anime post

Both movies look promising judging from the trailer both animation studios are obviously seeking to break out from the old tradition of full length locally animated movies released before like Adarna: The Mythical Bird (1997) and Urduja (2007), both official MMFF entries. I do hope this jumpstarts the trend for local animation studios to churn more quality indie film features worthy of international standards.