Manoró launches campus tour at UST

Manoró launches campus tour at UST

Manoró, a digital movie about an Aeta girl who taught adult members
of her mountain tribe so they could vote in what turned out to be
the controversial 2004 presidential elections, opens the CineVita
Film Festival on March 7, 10 a.m., at the Thomas Aquinas Research
Center, University of Santo Tomas, España, Manila.

Organized by The Varsitarian, the 79-year-old student publication of
UST, CineVita will run from March 7 to 9. According to the
organizers, the event is meant "to celebrate life, truth, and faith
and uphold the cinema as tool for meaningful expression and
authentic education." All documentaries and local films are open to
the public. Foreign full-length films are exclusive to lecturers,
film critics, and students. Admission is free.

Brillante Mendoza's full-length feature, from a screenplay by
Ralston Jover, won the Best Picture and Best Director awards in the
Digital Lokal section of the 2006 Cinemanila International Film
Festival. It also won the CinemAvvenir Award at the 23rd Torino
International Film Festival.

Manoró was also screened at the 28th Festival of Three Continents in
Nantes, France and will compete at the Bangkok International Film
Festival in Thailand this July. It was co-produced by CenterStage
Productions and the Holy Angel University (HAU) Center for
Kapampangan Studies.

Mendoza previously directed Masahista, winner of the Golden Leopard
trophy (grand prize) in the 2005 Locarno International Film Festival
in Switzerland, and Kaleldo, which had its world premiere in the
Rome International Film Festival. Both films had Kapampangan
dialogues and had been shot entirely in Pampanga.

Manoró was shot for only five days under the most primitive
circumstances at Sitio Target in Sapangbato. Its lead star, Jonalyn
Ablong, had just graduated from the Sapangbato Elementary School
(SES) when the movie producers discovered her. In fact, the movie's
opening sequence is actual footage from her graduation program.

For those interested to sponsor/screen Manoro, Kaleldo, and/or other
CenterStage productions in their schools, please contact 09229936814.