Article on maxi
Surprise success for Philippine film shot on shoestring
By Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop
International Herald Tribune
Published: September 28, 2006
SINGAPORE Having won 13 awards since it premiered at the Cinemalaya Festival in the Philippines 14 months ago, it's fair to say "The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros" has been the darling of the international film festival circuit this year.
The film by director Auraeus Solito was shot in 13 days on a shoestring budget of $30,000 and was not only the director's first feature-length film, but also the first for the producer and the lead actor.
It was also the first full-length Filipino feature to be invited to the Sundance Film Festival last January and is the Philippines' entry in the "best foreign language film" category for the 79th Academy Awards next February. The film, which as already been showing in Asia, opened in New York last week and will start showing in Los Angeles on Friday.
The moving drama revolves around an effeminate 12-year-old boy (Maximo played by newcomer Nathan Lopez) who is torn between his family of petty criminals and an honest policeman who saves him from neighborhood bullies and becomes the subject of the boy's youthful crush.
"I think it goes beyond the label of 'gay' film. We certainly didn't make it with a label in mind," says the producer Raymond Lee. He noted that, while the film won the Teddy (the Berlinale's gay and lesbian award), it also won the grand prix of the Deutsches Kinderfilmfest (the Berlinale's children award).
Lee attributes the film's success and wide appeal to its ability to surprise audiences. "They go in expecting something, and they come out with something else. I think this element of surprise is very important and what is missing in most commercial films nowadays," he said during a recent visit to Singapore to help with the selection of the Asian First Film Festival 2007.
"People have also expressed surprise that the film shows Filipinos as being very tolerant and accepting of differences; whereas before, they would think of us as a former Catholic colony, now they appreciate it's not a society under the spell of religion," he added.
Lee has been working for many years in the Philippines' mainstream film industry as a scriptwriter, having penned some of the country's most commercially successful movies, including "Anak" (Child), "Tanging yaman" (The Only Treasure) and "Milan." But in 2004, tired of always working for the commercial studios, "where scripts get written as vehicles for stars," Lee and four other scriptwriter friends decided to set up their own company, ufo Pictures.
"We wanted more creative control over our own material. We wanted to be involved in projects that start with a story or a character," he recalled. "We knew many of our dream projects would never make it on screen. If we had pitched Maxi to the studio, they would have laughed at us. They would have come up with all sorts of reasons why it wouldn't be commercial. We cast unknown actors which would never fly with the studios, although now, paradoxically, they're famous. The lead actor has just got his first TV show."
"Maximo," which he co-wrote with his ufo partner Michiko Yamamoto, was the new production house's first project and a steep learning curve for the new producer. His first difficult challenge was casting the role of Maximo, something of a paradox for a production house that had been created to make projects not led by stars. The boy had to look physically right for the part. "We auditioned close to a hundred boys. There were a lot of professionals, but they looked a little too 'healthy' for the part of a boy living in the slums," Lee says. "At one point we were almost going to give up. We felt we couldn't push through with the project without the right Maximo."
While filming was remarkably rapid, post-production ran on for more than five months as work on the project depended on the money available and everybody's schedule. Lee also had to work hard to get a PG-13 rating, i.e. not for children under 13, in the Philippines and find a distribution for the film: "It almost killed us," he said.
The Philippine film industry has long been ruled by a studio system modeled on Hollywood's. The industry developed in the 1930s, but it was only in 1976 that the world became aware of Filipino cinema when Lino Brocka's "Insiang" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. "The mid-'70s to the early '80s were the golden years of Filipino cinema," Lee recalls, "But the studios lost touch with their audiences. They milked certain genres like action films, while quality deteriorated."
At one stage the studios were putting out more than 200 movies a year, but by the end of the 1990s, the industry was in a tailspin. Today, the studios only produce around 50 films a year. But independent filmmaking is flourishing, mainly due to lower-cost digital technology. Last year, for the first time, independent productions exceeded the output of the studio system.
"That was a historic landmark, but the impact is still not there, because distribution wise, independent films hardly get shown. Only about 10 percent get commercial distribution," Lee says.
Since working on Maximo's production, Lee has also produced ufo's sophomore offering, "Sarong Banggi," which was recently shown in Barcelona and has just been released in the Philippines.
Asked what he enjoys most, Lee quips "I hate it when I'm in the middle of writing, but love it when I'm finished. I love it when I'm producing, but I hate the marketing part."
With all the marketing involved and a successful tour of international festivals, "Maximo" has all but consumed his life over the past year.
"Actually it's been quite disturbing, because I haven't been able to write much," he laughs. He's now writing a family story with a horror twist, which he's also hoping to produce.