This December, viewers will have the chance to watch alternative cinema for four days straight. MFMF! Mondomanila Film Fest Motherf%*#ers! will premiere Khavn De La Cruz's 28th full-length film titled Mondomanila at the UP Film Center from December 1 to 4, 2010.
Mondomanila: or, How I Fixed My Hair After A Rather Long Journey is Khavn's latest film. It's an adaptation of Norman Wilwayco's triple-Palanca-winning novel (2002), short story (2000), and screenplay (2003).
Explains Khavn, "It's a post-modern version of Edgardo Reyes' Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag. It not only explores Manila and its humanity, it also delves into the whole rationale behind the irrational lives these people experience every day.
"In my film Mondomanila, I strived to present the truth as gleaned from the cracks in a celluloid curtain. But the 'truth—it is not out there as pundits from the other realm put it. It's in one's own backyard—and backyards can shock, especially, if one doesn't go out too much.
"I believe that Mondomanila offers one of the most horrifying backyards in the tradition of films made by one of the foremost directors, the late Lino Brocka.
"If Brocka's films a decade ago talked about the wounds of Manila, I would like to believe that Mondomanila belongs to a new breed of storytelling that makes one feel as if one has actually touched that wound, a close-up view of all that gangrene and pus."
In Mondomanila, viewers will meet the incorrigible Paranoid Squad; the devoted loanshark, Lovely 5-6; the queer, romantic princess, Naty; Naty's chauvinistic retired cop of a father, Sgt. Pepper; the definitely un-virginal Mother Maria; the loving and caring sibling with a deep, dark, bloody secret, Dino; the unseen arsonist-slash-Maria's-lover, Shoeshine Pablo; and of course, the iconoclastic anti-hero running the show, Tony D.
These characters are brought to life by the following cast: 15-year-old Urian nominee and Makiling High School for the Arts scholar Timothy Mabalot (Tony D.); Gael Garcia Bernal's Mammoth co-star, Marife Necesito (Mother Maria); the late great Palito (Shoeshine Pablo); Whitney Tyson (Lovely 5-6); midgets; strongmen; lesbian triplets; dirty old white man; and talented teens with disabilities but with incredible rapping and breakdancing skills from Talentadong Pinoy (Talented Filipinos).
Mondomanila will have six screenings from December 1 to 4, 2010at 7:00 P.M. and December 2 to 3 at 5:00 P.M. at the Cine Adarna, UP Film Institute, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City.
A forum on the relevance of the Metro Manila Film Festival dubbed "MMFF vs MFMF!" will also be held on December 1, 4:00 P.M. at the UP Film Center.