OPENING FILMS
Dear To Me was screened as limited engagement only from Dec. 28 to Dec. 31, 2021. The film is not anymore available. But you can still watch all our films for FREE at our VOD Channel.
8th BAKUNAWA Young Cinema [Film & Art Festival] announces Monica Vanesa Tedja’s Dear To Me and Zig Madamba Dulay’s Black Rainbow as Opening Films, giving powerful voices to the Marginalized
Bakunawa Young Cinema, a genre film festival named after a mythical dragon-like creature in Philippine mythology that devoured moons, opens its eighth edition with the films “Dear To Me” by Monica Vanesa Tedja (Indonesia/Germany) and “Black Rainbow” by Zig Madamba Dulay (Philippines). Both films will have their Philippine Premiere with Bakunawa. For the festival, Bakunawa symbolizes the creative dragons inside us and the beautiful stories emphasizing local culture. It is because of these guiding principles that Bakunawa is most proud to present the two acclaimed opening films for 2021 that give powerful voices to the marginalized.
Dear to Me is told from the perspective of a mysterious voiceover explaining a dream, following the story of Tim, a young Indonesian wedding photographer, who is on vacation with his strictly conservative parents in a remote island. Tim’s parents expects that this vacation would bring him closer to God. But Tim is drawn towards an old folktale about a long lost forbidden love between a man and a woman. There is a superstition believed by local folks from the island that seeing a deer would be a sign that one would meet his/her soulmate. A curious Tim hopes he would discover a deer somewhere in the same island where mysticism, love and relationships float in an ocean of repressed emotions.
Black Rainbow tells the story of Itan, a 12-year old Ayta (one of the Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines) who decides not to continue his studies in favor of helping his family harvest banana bells and doing kaingin (land clearing) instead. He believes that education is not for the minority indigenous peoples like him but for the wealthy and those from the highlands. One day, he found a broken computer keyboard that will give him hope and will change the course of his life, values and principles.
The two films – each having its own voice – tackle topics that are pressing in today’s contemporary landscape and directed by two of the most exciting filmmakers working in the world today.
Zig Dulay, a native from Isabela province, is one of the Philippines’ most acclaimed and awarded filmmakers. His few selected awards include: Best Short Film for “Missing” at the 2013 URIAN Awards; Jury Prize at Metro Manila Film Festival 2014; Best Film for “Bambanti” at the Brussels International Film Festival and Ayjal Youth Film Festival in 2015; Best Screenplay for “Bagahe” at Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival 2017. He submitted “Black Rainbow” to Sine Halaga Film Festival of NCCA and Negros Cultural Foundation (NCF) and was declared one of the Top 12 Winners, thereby getting full funding from the same festival. After having its world premiere at Sine Halaga and international premiere at FACINE 28 (San Francisco, USA) where it won Gold Prize (the highest prize of the festival), Black Rainbow will officially have its Philippine Premiere in Bakunawa.
Monica Vanesa Tedja, born in Jakarta, is a Chinese-Indonesian filmmaker whose films pose questions around minority identity issues through intimae character work. When she was a kid, she did film montages of her family vacations from which her love for film grew. Considered one of Indonesia’s rising independent female filmmakers, she won Best Film in the XXI Short Film Festival and in France Film Festival Indonesia. She is currently based in Berlin, pursuing her MA in Film Directing at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf. “Dear To Me” won Best Short Film at First Steps Awards 2021 and received Special Mention from the Youth Jury at Locarno Open Doors Screenings.
Black Rainbow opens Dec. 26, 2021 (8 PM PST / 7 AM ET) at the Bakunawa VOD Page:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/blackrainbowbakunawa
* Black Rainbow runs until Jan 6, 2022
Dear To Me opens Dec. 28, 2021 (8 PM PST / 7 AM ET):
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/deartomebakunawa
* Dear To Me is a limited engagement only screening and runs until Dec. 31, 2021.
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1. Log in to your VIMEO.COM account. Create one if you have no account yet. It’s FREE!
2. Click the film link posted in our FB page.
3. When you open the film’s page, click “RENT” and click “Apply Promo Code” button and encode BAKUNAWA8. Click “Apply” and “Watch Now”. ENJOY!
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