‘Tokwifi’ awarded Cinemalaya 2020 best short feature film

The Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival 2020 jury named “Tokwifi” as this year’s Best Short Feature Film and Network for the Promotion of Asia-Pacific Cinema (NETPAC) Prize awardee, edging out nine other entries.

Directed by Carla Pulido Ocampo, jury members cited Tokwifi for its “highly original take on love between two persons coming from different eras and worlds, and how modernity and tradition could best be bridged by common humanity.”

Aside from the Balanghai trophy, the Best Film winner took home Php150,000 cash prize, a set of OSMO 3-Axis pocket hand-held camera and full color-grading services from Optima Digital, worth Php360,000.

A film about an unlikely love story between a 1950s mestiza star trapped inside a television set that fell from the sky and a Bontok Igorot man who does not know how to kiss, the film also won the NETPAC Award for its magical but very convincing depiction of how women are boxed into stereotypes by television and how cultural communities are reduced into backward primitivism by the media.

The NETPAC is a worldwide organization that promotes a greater understanding and appreciation of Asian films and filmmakers.

Filmmaker Martika Ramirez Escobar took home the Balanghai trophy for Best Direction for her film “Living Things.”

Escobar has “effectively orchestrated the resources of cinema in its whimsical yet convincing tale of how two people in love confront the challenges of change by even more love and devotion,” the jury said in its citation.

Living Things is about a woman who discovers that her decade-long lover has turned into a cardboard standee.

The Best Screenplay Award went to “Pabasa Kan Pasyon, a film by Hubert Tibi.

It was cited for its “moving tale of mother and son struggling to survive amid the sounds and sights of lent in the Philippine countryside.”

The film follows a Bicolano family that turns to religion to make both ends meet.

Reeden Fajardo’s “Quing Lalam Ning Aldo” took the Audience Choice Award, and received a certificate and Php50,000 cash prize.

Fajardo’s film is a heartwarming tale of a transgender sampaguita farmer who decides to renovate their neglected kitchen as soon as she hears that her son is coming home.

Joanna Vasquez Arong’s “Ang Pagpakalma Sa Unos” received the Special Jury Prize for “its moving account through the eyes of a child of the ravages wrought by the strongest typhoon ever recorded in human history, its poignant poetry losing none of the event’s immediacy and tragedy.”

Arong also received a Balanghai trophy, Php60,000 cash prize, and a DCP mastering package, worth Php25,000, from Central Digital Lab.

The Cinemalaya continues to screen on Vimeo until Aug. 16.

The awarding ceremonies were held on Aug. 12, 2020, live on CCP and Cinemalaya Facebook pages, Vimeo, and KUMU.

For those living outside the Philippines, you can catch the global premiere of Cinemalaya on the Filipino Channel (TFC) from Aug. 17 to 31, and on iWanTV from Aug. 24 to Sept. 7, 2020.