For those who have missed the commercial run of the film "Mga Pusang Gala", you now have the chance to see and own it on video! It is available in any video stores nationwide! One of the must-haves in Pinoy cinema today!
"Mga Pusang Gala" is now enjoying its international screening. International video release will be on December!Official Site:
www.pusanggala.com********
Mga Pusang Gala gets Pink audiences purringMga Pusang Gala is Ellen’s maiden venture into digital movie production together with her husband, Martin Marfil, a former reporter of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. The movie is sort of her thesis: “In putting up a business, you have to study the exterior condition – a dying film industry, growth of a new technology (digital), we have many fine actors, Filipinos love watching movies, and my own strengths and weaknesses. Pinagsama-sama ko, so I came up with this equity sharing.” Ellen says that in Pusang Gala, majority in the cast and staff are on equity sharing, which means Ellen pays them partial cash and the rest becomes their investment in the project. Such scheme relies on the belief that “the director, and the artists at large, should own the work that they do. That way, a greater balance between art and commerce can be achieved.”
Ellen has come a long way since building PETA’s telesine machine. She Lino Brocka’s Larawan for stage and Ora Pronobis for film, Ismael Bernal’s Dear Teacher TV series and Himala, Mike de Leon in Sister Stella L., and Chito Roño in Eskapo.
Taking time out from her management work at GMA 7, she directed Walang Bakas, a docu-drama on Filipino desaparecidos which was named Best Drama by the Catholic Mass Media Awards in 2004, and was a runner-up in the Asian Television Awards, also last year.
Ellen’s first full-length digital movie is the critically acclaimed Angels for Star Cinema which tackled the true-to-life story of how a blind couple struggles to raise a family amidst an uncaring society. Although Angels had a limited distribution, it did not reach the theatrical circuit, she felt happy about digital technology. “I thought I was able to explore its possibilities. So I told myself, this is what I want to go into. I’ll save money and next time I’ll be my own producer,” Ellen recounts.
While working as a program manager for the public affairs programs of GMA 7, she asked permission from her bosses to attend a two-week “Managing the Arts Course” at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) which, she says, was serendipitous. It was not only about marketing research; it’s about self-mastery and listening to your audience. It’s inspirational, and scientific tools are provided.
How did she manage to talk her cast and staff into it?
“There are many factors,” Ellen explains. “I tapped people whom I have worked with in the past, who have a healthy respect for each other, and who believe in the material.”
Mga Pusang Gala began as a laboratory play, Libog at Kabilugan ng Buwan, of Jun Lana for PETA. Just as she found Lana’s work witty, it won in the Palanca playwriting contest, she was ambivalent even when it was mounted on stage. “Tawa ako ng Tawa, but wait, you’re insulting me as a woman,” she says. Years later, the director and the playwright sat down together and discussed how the play Lana wrote at age 21 could be adapted on screen. Next, she invited Rody Vera, another noted playwright, to join the team. Ellen did not want to do a black comedy, so Vera came up with his own analysis of human relationship – that some people fall in love with their own fantasies. Because of social conditioning, they fantasize in order to satisfy what society has conditioned them to believe what a relationship should be.
The creative team thus came up with a parody on adult romantic relationships, replete with naughty erotic scenes and satiric fantasies. Pusang Gala tells the story of parallel love lives: that of a middle age woman, a lady advertising practitioner, and that of her friend and duplex kasera, a gay romance novelist, just as aging. Both woman and gay continue to pine and wait for their respective lovers to give their commitment in their relationships, but none forthcoming, they decide to take matters into their hands.
So, why did this lady director choose to do a “sexy” film, which traditionally is the turf of male directors? “Doing a sexy film, that’s one part of understanding the whole context of movie-making in this country. That’s why, I’m coming out with this one (laughs).” Ellen elaborates: “I see women watching bold films alone in the movie house, unescorted. Me, I tell my husband, ‘tingnan nga natin ang bold film na ito’. I have to bring Martin along kasi nakakatakot mag-isa para sa babae. Di ba, as young woman with blooming sexuality, she will look for it in the movie, for whatever purpose, maybe to understand it better. But the local bold films I watched were very yucky. They focus on
the woman’s body, woman as a sex object, or sex as an act. I felt that I wanted to have my say on the matter.”
Having been both an artist-craftsperson in her previous involvements in theater, film and television, this feisty director certainly knows where she stands.
Mga Pusang Gala is top-billed by multi-awarded actors Ricky Davao and Irma Adlawan. Playing their lovers are hunk and ramp models, Reggie Curley and Lauren Novero, both Body Shot winners. The movie was shot through digital technology but with the help of Atty. Joji Alonso and Atty. Roger Rayala of MLR Films, it will be transferred to film for a possible theatrical release.
There are many firsts in this project...
a. technology, the first to film transfer material shot on 24p Panasonic dvx - not hd . the first in the Philippines.
b. Equity-sharing for almost all cast and crew including make-up artists, with a project that has a definite commercial plan
c. First woman director to tackle woman/gay bonding and shared struggles
Atty. Joji Antonio of MLR films funded the film transfer.
ELLEN ONGKEKO-MARFIL AND ERASTO PRODUCTIONSELLEN ONGKEKO-MARFIL wears many hats: producer – manager – director, at the same time that she straddles both mainstream and alternative. It is as a director, however, where she has been most reluctant, perhaps, because, as she says, it is in that field where she is least comprising, as she battles obstacles both within and without. Perhaps, that is why her works, though few and far – between, have consistently received good reviews, nominations and awards. Her most recent work “Walang Bakas” a story about political salvagings from 1972 to the present which she did for GMA-7 was awarded best drama program by CMMA and and was 1st runner-up for best docu-drama at the Asian TV Awards last year. Her first full-length digital movie “Angels” about a blind couple trying to raise a family amidst an uncaring society, which she did for Star Cinema was critically-acclaimed but unfortunately had limited distribution. Another Asian TV finalist “Rosario” , a telemovie about a woman who sells prayers for a living, got for her lead, Lorna Tolentino, the best actress award in all the local award-giving bodies.
So today she’s decided to put her talents, skills and resources together by putting-up Erasto Productions. To produce and direct her own work, in a way that she feels things should be done: such as putting great emphasis on good material and talent and not star status and commerce. Not that she has anything against commercial films per se, if by commercial, one means to communicate as effectively as possible to be able to reach-out to the widest audience possible. “I’m not an esoteric artist, sustainability is important!”, she says. “But this does not mean going formula”. She thinks she can beat the system.
Erasto Productions’ initial offering is based on a Palanca Award –winning play, “Mga Pusang Gala” which tackles present-day gender relations in ways never been done before in terms of depth and treatment and here, she used digital technology to cut down costs and convinced her actors and staff to go on equity-sharing – meaning only partial cash were paid and the rest of their talent fees were considered as equity-in-kind. By sharing risks and by artists having greater control from choice of material to casting, processs, final edit and distribution, Ongkeko-Marfil believes that greater balance between art and commerce can be achieved.
Ellen Ongkeko Marfil recently resigned from her work as TV executive managing public affairs programs such as I-Witness and Debate to go “indie”- so she can direct, produce and market her own work and to pursue a vision to push alternative filmmaking which is more liberative in content, process and organization to mainstream possibility.
Named after her father, an African name which means man of peace, Erasto Productions was founded amidst a dying industry to come up with works which provide new ways of looking and experiencing life which can reach-out to both local and international community.
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