A full-length animated feature film will be competing at this year’s Cinemalaya festival for the first time ever—and it’s starring Carlo Aquino, Gio Gahol, and Golden Globe and BAFTA Award-nominee Dolly de Leon.
The film is called “Iti Mapukpukaw” or “The Missing” in Ilokano. The story is about Eric, a mouthless animator with a normal life, who one day meets an alien who wants to take him away from Earth.
Rotoscope, a method of animation that’s created by tracing over frame by frame of live-action footage, was used to shoot the film.
The cast includes Carlo Aquino who stars as Eric, Dolly de Leon who stars as Eric’s mother, and stage and screen veteran Gio Gahol (who recently finished his run as Tenyong in PETA’s “Walang Aray”) who stars as Eric’s office crush.
The film was written by QCinema and FAMAS award winning director Carl Joseph E. Papa, whose film “Paglisan” bagged the 2018 best picture award at the C1 Originals Awards.
While the festival’s home, the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), is under renovation, the festival will continue on at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC), CCP’s Black Box Theater, and select theaters around the country.
This year’s Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival will run from Aug. 4 to 13. For tickets and more information, you can visit the Cinemalaya website.