Messina, an outcast and failed fortuneteller returns to her hometown to save her daughter Claire from a syndicate that aims to exploit her gift of fortune telling. When Messina returns, she finds her daughter caught in debt and the squabble of a petty syndicate running a band of fortunetellers for the unwary, desperate answer-seekers. For years, their hometown has been grooming one great fortuneteller just as they had hailed Dorothea as the town's leader. Dorothea is the grandmother of Claire who appears in her dreams. A helpful fortuneteller named Rachel teaches Messina that the only way to save her daughter is to embrace a gift she has vowed to give up, the ability to see the future no matter how bleak and inescapable.
Sep 2009
Rekados is a magic-realist tragicomedy of three generations of cooks in the slums that own a karinderia. Josefina, the matriarch whose traditional skill in cooking keeps the family alive; Laura, the daughter who prefers cooking to please her customers and the man she desires; and caught in between the two is Pinay, the granddaughter who mimics Kris Aquino to get a basketball player of her own. In their small world of the kitchen that empowers and imprisons them, they cook dishes that symbolize their affection: adobo; kare-kare; dinuguan; and pansit. Each of them brings different flavors as they mix with each other and the men of their desires.
Nov 2006
