Sari Dalena and Keith Sicat's Rigodon at Mag:net Cafe

Cinekatipunan is happy to present the film Rigodon
every wednesday for the month of November. Written and
directed by Sari Lluch Dalena and Keith Sicat, Rigodon
was premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival
2005.

Dalena and Sicat's debut feature film follows the
spiritual journeys of three Filipino immigrants whose
lives intertwine in an age of racial profiling and
government crackdowns in melancholy post-9/11 New
York City. Arthur Acuna plays the fighter Amado, who
is too old to continue boxing in his native land and
comes to the US to battle the harsh conditions every
migrant faces as he dreams of the family he left
behind. Chin-chin Gutierrez is Salome, the dreaming
war-bride who has been wed to her American husband for
ten years. Joel Torre plays the rebel-poet Dante who
has been helping his fellow immigrants for over a
decade. Their stories unfold in poetic cinematic
language as the film meditates on the beauty and the
horror that is the American dream.

Also included in the cast are Filipino theater
stalwarts Ching Valdes-Aran, Olga natividad, Banaue
Miclat and Joseph Pe. Grace Nono and Bob Aves provide
additional music to the soundtrack composed by
Juilliard School's renowned clarinetist Kinan Azmeh.
Azmeh is the only Syrian and first Arab to win the
first prize at the Nicolay Rubinstein international
youth competition in Moscow, Russia, 1997. ?
Rigodon has been nominated for awards at the New York,
San Francisco, and Los Angeles Asian American
International Film Festivals, and the Cineaste Guild
of the Philippine's Annie Awards 2006. It won the Best
Feature Film award in the international competition
category at the 8th International Panorama of
Independent Filmmakers in Athens, Greece.

Rigodon was also screened at the Smithsonian Institute
in Washington DC, the Fribourg and Cinemanila
International Film Festivals, and is set to screen at
the Institute of Contemporary Art as part of
the Boston Asian American Film Festival, Austin Asian
Film Festival and Chicago Filipino American Film
Festival on November. RIGODON will also screen at the
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in January
2007.

Rigodon will be preceded by Bullet Days, Dalena’s
short student work from Chapman University in Orange
County, California. Bullet Days was awarded the Grand
Jury Prize for Best Experimental Film and Best Editing
at the Eksperimento International Film Festival 2001.

Bullet Days and Rigodon will screen from 5:30 to 7:00
PM on November 8, 15, 22 and 29 in Mag:net Café. The
complete schedule of screenings for November will be
posted at www.magnet.com.ph. Calendar/leaflets will be
available in all Mag:net branches. Gate entrance is at
P50.