Topic: FOSTER CHILD

[keating]

Received a ten-minute standing ovation at the Director's Fortnight at Cannes. Officially in competition at Cinemalaya 2007. With Cherry Pie Picache, Eugene Domingo, Jiro Manio, Alwyn Uytingco, Dan Alvaro and Kier Segundo. Directed by Dante Mendoza and written by Ralston Joel Jover.

Standing ovation for Pinoy film in Cannes
By Ruben V. Nepales
Inquirer
Last updated 08:14am (Mla time) 05/26/2007

LOS ANGELES, California--"We had a ten-minute standing ovation
during the official screening," Robbie Tan excitedly told us via
text message about the reaction to "Foster Child," which he
produced, after its official screening Friday evening at the
Directors' Fortnight in Cannes.

"The audience was absolutely moved by 'Foster Child,' " Robbie
added. We are back in LA now from Cannes but the ecstatic text
messages by the folks behind the Pinoy film, directed by
Brillante "Dante" Mendoza, excited us as well.

The producer claimed that the press screening held earlier, on
Friday morning, was a success as well: "Many viewers told us
that 'Foster Child' is a moving film. They were all praises for
Cherry Pie (Picache)." Cherry Pie stars in the film along with
Eugene Domingo, Jiro Manio, Alwyn Uytingco, Dan Alvaro and Kier
Segundo.

Dante, whom we interviewed while we were in Cannes, told us via text
message, "I am humbled by the audience reaction. They said the film
was one of the best in the Directors' Fortnight."

Below is a press release from Ferdie Lapuz, the sales agent
of "Foster Child," who shared with us that he got goose bumps as he
witnessed the enthusiastic response to the film:

"The official screening of 'Foster Child' was held at 5:00 p.m.
today (Friday, May 25) and ended at around 6:45 p.m. There was an
almost 10-minute standing ovation for the film.

"Director Brillante Mendoza and actress Cherry Pie Picache stood up
at least three times to acknowledge the cheers by the crowd. Both
Mendoza and Picache were so moved by the reaction that they cried.

"According to Directors' Fortnight artistic director Olivier
Pere, 'Foster Child' is the second film to get a good reaction from
the audience. Mr. Pere introduced the team from 'Foster Child'
before the screening. Joining Mendoza and Picache were producer
Robbie Tan and writer Ralston Joel Jover.

"In the audience representing FDCP (Film Development Council of the
Philippines) chairman Jacky Atienza were IFFCOM (International Film
Festival Committee) chair Christine Dayrit, FDCP executive director
Lali Suzara and Cinemanila executive director Tikoy Aguiluz.
Representatives from AD Vitam Distribution, the French distributor
of 'Foster Child' in France, were also present. They were very happy
with the audience reaction.

"Earlier in the day, the press screening was held to an almost SRO
crowd -- quite a feat considering that it was held early at 9:00
a.m. and that Friday was the second to the last day of the festival."

[keating]

The opening film for this year's CINEMALAYA. Its not included on the competition category.

Cinemalaya 2007 Opening Ceremonies
Special Screening: FOSTER CHILD by Brillante Mendoza       
Venue 1 - CCP Main Theatre / Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo   07:00 PM   20 Jul/Fri

[keating]

Two days to go...... judge if the hype were all true.

[oggsmoggs]

Foster Child (Brillante Mendoza, 2007)

[diamond]

I saw this film during the CineManila Fest. Grabe, ang ganda! Another classic example of real time writing.

[riverfan]

i saw posters all over. looking forward to this.

here is the trailer on youtube.

[oggsmoggs]

It's okay. Brillante's best work for me is still Manoro... and this film shows his faults as a director (relying too much on the real-time rather than directorial flair). Masmahusay ka pa, Jim.

[av_phile1]

Just saw this film on opening at the Glorieta and I failed to sympathize with Cherry Pie's foster mother character.  I couldn't help compare this film with a Nino Muhlach - Dolphy film (forgot the title) that really tugged at the heart when it was time to let go of Nino as Dolphy's adopted kid.  Here, there was nothing about the kid's relation to the mother that made parting such a trauma.  Cherry Pie's character just essays a doting mother who does her job well.  But sadly fails to give drama to any real love with her foster child who just struts along like a pedigreed pet dog complete with feeding moments, a worthless nursery pageant, bathing scenes and changing diapers.  Obviously the kid isn't interested to play act other than being a mere prop.  If at all, the film showed the kid more as a burden than a human gem that Nino Muhlach was able to deliver in that Dolphy film.  So that losing him in the end just wasted Cherry Pie's drama with a trully inspired tearful bravura.  Too bad, the drama never approached the level of emotional involvement elicited when Dolphy burst into tears packing Nino's clothes for his new home.  The effect was that of a mother crying because of her wasted effort at rearing a child, rather than a mother crying because of any real loss of love.  But if the director wanted that, he succeeded alright - showing a career in foster parenting as just another impersonal thankless job (except for her awards from Hospicio de San Jose). 

I have no problem with the camera technique employed but it just wasn't compelling enough to involve me when almost all the angles were taken from a distance.  Hardly any intimate shots that can reveal unspoken emotions.  It might as well have been staged as a play in a Bulwagan Gantimpala theater where the audience sees everything from a distance.  None of the intimacy and subtleties that cinema is supposed to afford.  Here, Foster Child looks like an amateur was holding a Sony digicam filming a play from various sides both indoors and out.  It actually succeeds more to showcase the happy-go-lucky pinoys amidst a decrepit misery of slum dwellings than create the drama for a potentially powerful material like this.

[marj]

a Nino Muhlach - Dolphy film (forgot the title)

ANG TATAY KONG NANAY  (1978)  -- Lino Brocka

[av_phile1]

Yup, that's the one, thanks marj. 

Comparing the two may not really be appropriate, but it shows that cinema is more than just technique and artistry.  But also involving the audience at any of different levels, intellectually, emotionally, morally, etc., that Foster Child miserably failed at anyone to put its message across.  And it deftly reveals what an amateur with maybe some promise can do versus what a professional artist like Brocka with real depth can.  And what message was Foster Child trying to get across?  That foster parenting is just another thankless job.  The film never went beyond that.  Actually, I find the title inappropriate.  I think it should be Foster Mother.  The child was just a prop with extended Bertolucci-like naked moments most pedophiles just might relish.

[keating]

I was moved only by the last part of this film hoping that it will also elicit me strong emotions like MAGNIFICO and yes, in the Brocka classic ANG TATAY KONG NANAY.

Sadly enough, I thought I was just watching a simple documentary on being a FOSTER PARENT. And it got 10-minute standing ovation?! 

[av_phile1]

Now that you mentioned it, it did feel more like a documentary.  And that outburst of lachrymal indigestion from Cherry Pie is admittedly one acting bravura that must have accounted for the 10-minute ovation.

[keating]

What if Brillantes did it like a true documentary? I prefer KUBRADOR than this one. Still Cherry Pie was brilliant during the finale.

[av_phile1]

Indeed, one might even be forgiven to say that Cherry Pie's few seconds of inspired performance at the end redeemed the film's lackluster presentation on the subject. 

[keating]

He should have made it a like a documentary. I almost fall asleep watching this one at the opening of Cinemalaya.

[thegoodbyeguy]

     Hahaha...Whenever I hear or read the word "real-time" I can't help but associate it with internet thing, broadband.

[oggsmoggs]

With Foster Child, we're starting to see the deficiencies of Bing Lao's "real time" movement --- that partnered with that cinematic ideology should be directorial mettle, which Brillante Mendoza (who started doing "real time" with Masahista, and is questionable in doing non-"real time" films as seen in Kaleldo. Mendoza shows promise though, as seen in Manoro, and one hopes that he can only grow as a filmmaker.

My curiosity with this "real time" filmmaking is that it's marketed as the new wave in Philippine cinema, yet its still not perfected. There's still a reliance on melodramatic flair or acute plot movements (as in the final scenes of Kubrador or Tribu); ""real time" movies that come close to being completely successful are Mendoza's Manoro and Sherad Sanchez's Huling Balyan ng Buhi (although the latter moves more poetically than in the way "real time" was imagined).

[av_phile1]

How does one define "Real Time" camera as opposed to news reporting-type hand held camera technique used in Saving Private Ryan and Bourne Ultimatum?  I haven't watched the other Pinoy indies. Does it mean no editing?

[oggsmoggs]

I think you'd know it's "real time" based on the writing, rather than the visuals. The main point of "real time" is to shift the attention from the drama to the location; the location (Tondo, squatters area, province, etc.) provides for the drama. Thus, the camera can be as jarring, hand-held, shifty (comparable to Saving Private Ryan or United 93) or gorgeously still as in Huling Balyan ng Buhi or in some parts of Kubrador.

[av_phile1]

I see.  To that extent, Foster Child did impart some claustrophic disconcerting atmosphere when it pans across the tight dwelling spaces and follows the social worker through the narrow slum corridors that successfully conveyed the reality of slum living.  I am not entirely convinced though that shifting the drama away from the child-mother intimacy serves the story well, or for that matter, relevant a technique to be used to the title itself.  I would think "real time" need not be an all or nothing technique as you can use it together with other techniques to give life to the unfolding drama. Conveying poignant realism in the location is not the end all of cinema.  Unless that's your objective in a documentary. 

[oggsmoggs]

It's pretty accurate actually (aside from the fact that there doesn't seem to be a bad soul in the slums); I know how it feels to be part of a foster family (my parents are active pro-lifers and we took part in the program until my mom couldn't take the feeling of separating with the foster children, and just decided to legally adopt the second child given to us). At first, I thought the film was ridiculous since who in their right mind would allow a slumsdweller to be a foster parent but according to my mom, they make the best foster parents since they're used to suffering (and there's nothing more tremendous than the suffering one experiences after being separated from someone you have grown to love). In a way, they've become callous to that. The beauty of the film is that it managed to show that callousness without totally removing the ultimate pain in the separation.

Would it be better as a documentary? Maybe. It'd be a different film altogether though, a lot harsher probably. It's an okay film, with several interesting discourses (the subtle journey of Picache from the slums to the urban wealth). It's just lazilly filmed and could have been better; definitely not the best in this new cinematic trend.

[pink moon]

This might be an oversimplification, but to my mind what they refer to as "real-time" filmmaking is essentially about "following the protagonist around." What I don't like about it is its tendency to obsess on the idea that truth can only be conveyed in this way. And that by doing so, it consequently succeeds in portraying life in the most honest, sincere, unpretentious way possible. What's with this obsession with "documentary" truth anyway?

I've attended a scriptwriting workshop that utilizes this method, and it felt like I was being taught surgical procedures. The fastidiousness was stifling.

[av_phile1]

It's pretty accurate actually (aside from the fact that there doesn't seem to be a bad soul in the slums); I know how it feels to be part of a foster family (my parents are active pro-lifers and we took part in the program until my mom couldn't take the feeling of separating with the foster children, and just decided to legally adopt the second child given to us). At first, I thought the film was ridiculous since who in their right mind would allow a slumsdweller to be a foster parent but according to my mom, they make the best foster parents since they're used to suffering (and there's nothing more tremendous than the suffering one experiences after being separated from someone you have grown to love). In a way, they've become callous to that. The beauty of the film is that it managed to show that callousness without totally removing the ultimate pain in the separation.

That just confirms my impression that foster parenting as depicted in this film is more like a factory churning out ready-to-adopt kids for rich foreigners.  The word "callousness" seem apt and the human tragedy isn't altogether side-stepped.  But the plot glosses over this tragedy with the delightful expectations of NEW babies waiting to be foster-cared.  That was clearly shown with Cherry Pie seemingly longing to care for another abandoned sick baby in a crib in the orphanage. 

So if the director wanted to depict foster parenting as a mechanical propping up of a child for adoption, I guess it succeeds.  Forget about any level of intimacy between mother and child.

Next baby, pls....

Would it be better as a documentary? Maybe. It'd be a different film altogether though, a lot harsher probably. It's an okay film, with several interesting discourses (the subtle journey of Picache from the slums to the urban wealth). It's just lazilly filmed and could have been better; definitely not the best in this new cinematic trend.

Well, there's also a genre called docu-drama. 

[oggsmoggs]

That just confirms my impression that foster parenting as depicted in this film is more like a factory churning out ready-to-adopt kids for rich foreigners.  The word "callousness" seem apt and the human tragedy isn't altogether side-stepped.  But the plot glosses over this tragedy with the delightful expectations of NEW babies waiting to be foster-cared.  That was clearly shown with Cherry Pie seemingly longing to care for another abandoned sick baby in a crib in the orphanage. 

So if the director wanted to depict foster parenting as a mechanical propping up of a child for adoption, I guess it succeeds.  Forget about any level of intimacy between mother and child.

Next baby, pls....

Well, there's also a genre called docu-drama. 

...which is mostly the producers' and media's fault rather than the artists. They label the film as heartwarming or a triumph of the heart and spirit when it really isn't. Isn't Foster Child a docu-drama, since its acted but features a lot of real stuff (like the slumspeople or the orphanage people and the kids there).

[keating]

How does one define "Real Time" camera as opposed to news reporting-type hand held camera technique used in Saving Private Ryan and Bourne Ultimatum?  I haven't watched the other Pinoy indies. Does it mean no editing?

Jeffrey Jeturian used hand held camera in doing KUBRADOR. And that was more intimate and more realistic than FOSTER CHILD. But before I always believe in his talent as a filmmaker whether doing the pito-pito SANA PAG-IBIG NA which was his brilliant debut and doing mainstream films like TUHOG, PILA BALDE and the comedy hit BRIDAL SHOWER.

[av_phile1]

...which is mostly the producers' and media's fault rather than the artists. They label the film as heartwarming or a triumph of the heart and spirit when it really isn't. Isn't Foster Child a docu-drama, since its acted but features a lot of real stuff (like the slumspeople or the orphanage people and the kids there).

It does border on the docu-drama.  And it probably is rather than a straight drama.  At its lowest, my idea of a docu drama are those discovery channel episodes like the Roman Gladiators, Unsolved Myseries, Lost Tomb of Jesus, The Real Cleopatra, etc. At its finest in films, there's Tora,Tora,Tora and Stone's JFK, where archived historical facts get mixed into the drama or even get hypothetical dramatization as in United 93.    The director goes beyond acting out the characters in an otherwise bland documentary.  Not just to flesh out a narrative, but to dramatize it in ways that are compellingly engaging.  Unfortunately the only moments engaging enough to be called a drama in Foster Child is reserved in the last 5 minutes or so.  Everything before that is indeed purely expository as in a documentary.  They might as well have used a real but nameless foster mother and go through it like "a day in the life of a foster mother" like a CNN special report from Amanpur. And have her cry her heart out after an adoption.  But I don't mind calling it as such even with a dramatization as bland as a documentary. Its utter realism is indeed remarkable and at least quite informative as documentaries go.   

[av_phile1]

Jeffrey Jeturian used hand held camera in doing KUBRADOR. And that was more intimate and more realistic than FOSTER CHILD. But before I always believe in his talent as a filmmaker whether doing the pito-pito SANA PAG-IBIG NA which was his brilliant debut and doing mainstream films like TUHOG, PILA BALDE and the comedy hit BRIDAL SHOWER.

I'll probably get the Kubrador DVD one of these days for comparison. 

[X44]

Is real time an actual film style? Sounds like a Dogme offshoot. Sounds lazy,too. Not too hot on the seeking of "documentary truth" through film myself - - -even the best documentaries don't necessarily do that.

Haven't seen Foster Child (warend off it by a few friends) but I've seen Kubrador and I think the jeturian film went against the grain of so-called real time (that is, if it is being lumpoed into the subsubsubgwenre) because his film wasn't about the mechanisms of jueteng per se.

[av_phile1]

I guess camera techniques are just that.  The film's cinematic value rises and falls at the hands of the director wielding whatever technique he chooses. 

If Mendoza aimed to convey the human tragedy of foster parenting, the film failed miserably.

If Mendoza aimed to convey the clinical aspects of foster parenting as just another job where you get paid P1500 a month and gets a kick out of taking care of babies and preparing them as "ready-for-adoption" kids, he succeeds. Though a straight documentary could have conveyed the same message as well. 

It seems to me this "real time" camera technique is just borrowed from documentary style of filming where location shots are never pre-produced or propped up using artificial lighting and you have to shoot often at a moment's notice with the natural light available.  Using this style in films do bring location realism to its utmost.  But it's not new.

One thing must be said about Cherry Pie's inspired performance at the end of the film.  It was an attempt to tug at the heart.  It could have succeeded mightily had there been a real sense of loss.  But there was none. Mendoza wanted to bring the audience to share her loss.  But nowhere in the film before gives substance to such a loss.  The child is more a prop.  Neither reciprocating his foster mother's love, nor showing any resistance to the adoption, the child didn't connect with the emotional string that Nino Muhlach did to Dolphy in Ang Tatay Kong Nanay so that the audience can fully bring itself to empathize the loss in the separation.  The tragedy is there, but it's more treated like a hazard to the profession of foster parenting than a disruption to a relationship.  Mendoza touched on a potentially powerful subject.  But he treated it to showcase more a technique and less its humanity. 

On hindsight, there was no conflict in the film.  No resolution either, (ofcourse since there was no conflict to begin with.)  Every scene points to the inevitability of adoption in the end.  It could have really been just a documentary. 

[keating]

Agree on the film's cinematic value.....it lies really on the hands of the filmmaker. The real sense of loss was only experience at the end of the film thru Cherry Pie's powerful performance. In Brocka's ANG TATAY KONG NANAY to borrow Mark Meily's quote.......you have to be dead not to be move by the separation scene between Dolphy and Nino Muhlach......

If FOSTER CHILD was a sex or porn film, I could only get an erection at the end of it.