Escolta: Film Journal Launch

Louella invited me to the launch of their project, Escolta Film Journal, at the Green Papaya Art Projects yesterday. This was their sort of culminating project in the Alexis Tioseco Internship Program and the magazine serves as some sort of tribute to the late Alexis Tioseco, a renowned film critic who was murdered September 9 of last year.

Louella and Dean posing with the tarp

Dean and myself came to support our friend and got ourselves lost looking for the venue which didn’t look like a place where ANYTHING happens. Apparently, it’s this well-known place where indie artsy-fartsy people go to watch indies and expe films and listen to indie musicians. We were going up and down Tomas Morato and Kamuning for about an hour before we finally found the place, mostly my fault because I kept guessing where it is and Dean kept following my directions. Hahaha.

Lesson learned: ask the locals for directions. Duh. Turns out we already passed by the place, which looked like a rundown house hidden among trees and other bungalow establishments.

Feeling hipsters. Hahaha.

Vanity issues

The place served a mean Beef Caldereta which was worth the P150.00 that I paid for it. In my book, cook me Beef Caldereta and I will love you till I die. Hahaha. It’s like my favorite Filipino dish ever. I wish I took a photo of it but we were too hungry to make any other move aside from devouring the thing, Dean downed it in 5 minutes.

After dinner, we waited for the musical acts to arrive while being treated to more experimental films. “Oh goodie”, I thought. I think I’ve seen enough expe films in a month than I ever did in my lifetime, and as usual, it’s not something that I could put my finger on properly. Then the two bands played, Away For the Day (vocalist has mad vocals) and Fando & Lis (reminds me of She & Him), and the event was over. Or rather, we left the place because my house is way away in Bicutan.

Wonderful music from Fando & Lis

The journal is the labor of love of 5 young individual’s love for Philippine Cinema, influenced by the passion of Alexis Tioseco whose death came too soon. He was named by the Philippine Star in 2005 as “one of the most important young people in the Philippines today” for his efforts to promote his nation’s cinema. Kudos to the people behind Escolta and the Alexis Tioseco Internship Program!

In memory of Alexis Tioseco

Escolta Film Journal, on top of a nekkid woman. Bad product placement.

I’ll leave you with a quote that I read from the film journal that is an excerpt of Tioseco’s Wishful Thinking for Philippine Cinema.

I wish we focused our attention more on audience education, development and literacy, than on dumbing down films to pander them.