Directors Mark Gary and Denisa Reyes expressed their excitement during a special screening of the film at the Jazz Heritage Center in San Francisco. The film is also nominated for the “best emerging director” for a narrative feature in the festival.
Gary and Reyes together with producer Beatrice Homann invited the local media, film groups and close friends in San Francisco for the viewing Sunday night. The group answered questions from the audience after the two-hour showing.
Reyes said she is elated as well as honored for the film to be selected and be shown in the longest running film festival in the US that aims to showcase films created by media artists of Asian descent and about the Asian community.
The film will be shown on July 24 at the Chelsea Cinemas at 8:45 p.m. in New York City. Reyes said she is hoping that Filipinos in New York and around the city will watch the film that has become so special for both Gary and her.
Both directors noted that the film was conceived from “the swell of enthusiasm that followed the play version of ‘Hubad’ in the Philippines that revealed an audience fascination for artistic interpretation of societal taboos.”
The film centers on a heterosexual couple that lives in a heavily Roman Catholic country where popular culture is grounded in sexual puns and parodies. According to the film directors, “Hubad” addressed the prohibitive topic of eroticism in marital relationship. It also alluded to the ambiguities of Filipino values and conventions.
Veteran actor and multi-awarded director Peque Gallaga, Irma Adlawan, Noni Buencamino, Audie Gemora and Sharmaine Buencamino complete the ensemble of a powerful cast. The characters in the film deal with challenges they face when their play of the same title “Hubad” hurdles financial obstacles when funding sources such as Manila Arts Council in the Philippines would not support the play due to its sexually explicit theme.
The film also “taps further into the world of theater” and the “dynamic between the lead stage actors and how their approach to character portrayals can blur the lines between performance and real life.”
Gary and Reyes told the audience that the issues tackled in the film remain an ordeal within the theater and the film industry in the Philippines, which is Asia’s largest Catholic nation.
“Hubad” is produced by Samasama Group Production with the support of the Philippine National Commission for Culture and the Arts. Collaborative Opportunities for Raising Empowerment (CORE), IndioBravo, NAAAP-NY, and Pan Asian Repertory sponsor the film showing in New York.
Special preview of the film is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch? - GMANews.TV
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