Talking with Javier Galvan, Director of Instituto de Cervantes at the Pelicula/Pelikula, the 22nd Spanish Film Festival event, reveals a lot about contemporary Spain.
Having lived in the Philippines for more than two decades, Javier said, he finds the country safer than anywhere else, even from his birth nation.
"Here, you can walk around the streets at night time without being assaulted or something," Galvan volunteered.
In terms of food and other personal needs, the Spanish Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) holder explained that he isn't particular about cuisine as long as they're edible and healthy.
In a shift of discussion, he said that racial discrimination exists in all parts of the world, small or big societies, so he assured Filipinos that racism isn’t only directed to us/them and other Third World nationalities.
Galvan was talking about skilled workers export and the syndrome of sending domestic help overseas. "The Philippines send Domestic Helpers abroad. The Spanish government also does it. Many Spanish nationals go to Europe to become DH. So how does it differ from Filipinos becoming domestic helpers abroad?" he challenged the mental calisthenics of the three of us, entertainment journalist Art Tapalla and culture chronicler Bon Labora and myself who were listening.
Domination, he said, comes from all directions of society and in any country.
Meanwhile, asked if there would be Spanish celebrities attending the 2023 Spanish film fest.
"Belen Cuesta, a famous actress in Spain, was supposed to come here but because of her condition, she's pregnant so she couldn't," said Javier.
Belen is popular among viewers of “Money Heist,” “Holy Camp!” “The Endless Trench,” among others.
Is it still possible that superstars and Hollywood stars of Spanish and Ibero-American descent like Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz, Salma Hayek, to name just a few who could come to the Philippines to grace the annual Spanish film event in the future?
"It depends. I already contacted the agencies of Antonio Banderas. They told me that there were also other countries that were requesting the personal appearances of Antonio. They had the same answer. 'Oh! We would love to but there are also other requests so we just tell them he couldn't come’," explained Javier.
"It's better that I go directly to Antonio instead. But I don't have his direct number. Maybe next time I get his contact number when I see him again," he expounded.
Sounds familiar at home when stars who have simultaneous invites from individuals or orgs to grace this and that event would be dismissed by their management agency or personal managers unless one has access to the contact points of the desired appearance of a star just like what Javier would do with Banderas the next time around.
The Spanish film gig was Galvan's brainchild twenty two years ago.
It's one of Instituto de Cervantes' major activities.
Opening film "As Bestas (The Beasts)" (2022) by director Rodrigo Sorogoyen speaks of the beast in men, a naturalistic way of looking at things when French couple Vincent and Olga built a farm in a Galician village where they are threatened by the local residents by fooling them (especially Vincent) around. In their pit of hate and jealousy, primarily, the Galician Anta brothers, killed the Frenchman by ganging up and crushing him as foreshadowed by the opening scene when caretakers of horses (the younger Anta brothers) squashed the head of a horse to death.
The film resonates with Filipinos and our countryside living in verdant forest and the universal character of bullying, envy, regionalism, clannishness, power tripping etc.
As the fest is a tribute to the late celebrated Spanish film director Carlos Saura who died last February at 91, "Goya en Burdeos (Goya in Bordeaux)" (1999)—one of the master's finest art works—is an exquisite and colorful narrative on the life and times of Spain’s famous and decorated eighteenth century visual artist Francisco de Goya.
The film is an expose on the private life of Goya that uncovers a lot of mysteries and controversies about the painter.
Saura combined his wizardry in theater devices and film language that makes the whole exercise a breath-taking experience with the attractive and multidimensional cinematography of Italian award-winning photographer Vittorio Storaro.
Incidentally, Goya Awards—considered the equivalent of Hollywood’s Academy Awards—in Spain was named after the great Spanish painter because the Spanish Academy of Motion Pictures and Arts argued that Goya’s paintings reflected cinematographic concepts.
Incidentally, too, “Goya en Burdeos (Goya in Bordeaux)” won major awards from Goya in 2000 for Best Actor (Fernando Rabal), Best Make-Up and Hairstyling (Jose Quetglas, Susana Sanchez and Blanca Sanchez), Best Costume Design (Pedro Moreno), Best Cinematography (Storaro) and Best Art Direction (Pierre Louis-Thevenet).
Shorts: Award-winning actress LJ Reyes has recently tied the knot with Fil-Am businessman and engineer Philip Evangelista in New York. LJ was the picture perfect of a bride because that was the moment she has been waiting for in her life which her past boyfriends Paolo Contis and Paulo Avelino failed to do even if she has kids with the actors, Summer and Aki, respectively. Philip proposed marriage to LJ in New York City last May and it barely took five months before they formally sealed the matrimonial bond…Finally, the suspension order imposed by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) already took effect its twelve-day non-airing of “It’s Showtime” which started on October 14, 2023 on the grounds that the noontime program showed indecent acts of Vice Ganda and Ion Perez in the “Isip-Bata” portion during its July 25, 2023 edition. Consequently, ABS-CBN, the network that produced the show, didn’t bother to appeal anymore the ruling of the Board instead they issued a statement saying that the station respected the authority but humbly maintained its stand “that the program did not break any pertinent law.” ABS-CBN promised to come back on the 18th of October, 2023 with “stronger and better than ever”…Bea Alonzo’s film “1521” about the Battle of Mactan garnered major awards at the 2023 Sweden Film Awards (SFA) in its monthly award-giving season for September. The movie which also stars Hollywood actor Danny Trejo bagged the Best Cinematography plum.
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