Laya is a young professional photographer who has drifted away from her family. Her father has fallen ill, but she hasn’t once come to visit him at the hospital. Her mother, who left their family when Laya was a child, returns to urge Laya to make amends with her father, but Laya’s pain goes deeper than her mother suspects. Laya is sent to the provinces to document a ritual of a disappearing indigenous tribe, and there, she inadvertently comes face to face with her own demons as she observes the relationships of the last remaining members of this dying culture.
Jul 2009
Concerto is about how, in the last part of World War II, a special piano concert is held in the forest outside Davao City, in Mindanao. In these boondocks, a displaced Filipino family, lead by Military Commander Ricardo and his wife Julia, become acquainted with a group of Japanese officers, similarly camped nearby. Their son Joselito, a Japanese speaker, becomes the conduit with the neighboring Japanese. Their daughters Niña, an aspiring concert pianist and the musically gifted, Maria, who is able to play by ear, are alternately repulsed and intrigued by the officers. Family values are questioned as the family treads the thin line between enmity and friendship with the occupying Japanese. Based on true stories from the director's own family history, Concerto celebrates a family whose reverence for life, expressed through their love of music and friendship, can survive even war, and shows how beauty and compassion does grow in even the harshest of conditions. - Written by anonymous
Nov 2008
Boses (Voices) is the story of a musician named Ariel who offers violin lessons to a child of the slums. Through the violin, the abused child Onyok is able to get back his voice from a mute, desensitized existence. A violin teacher and his student, a mute 7-year old abused child in a shelter, develop a friendship stemming from their love of music. Ariel discovers the immense talent of Onyok hiding behind a veneer of silence and pain caused by an unhappy and cruel father. In the developing relationship of teacher and student, both characters reveal more of themselves that otherwise may have remained unspoken. They discover each other's strengths and failures through the violin lessons.
Jul 2008
