Submitted by Cidee Despi
Each year, Pelikultura: the CALABARZON Film Festival attempts to showcase the diverse cultures of Los Baños, Laguna through the #BuhayElbi category. The category is open only to residents of LB. The premise of the competition gives the filmmakers, often students of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), the chance to organize and make sense of their experience in LB through film.
Unsurprisingly, #BuhayElbi features mainly the experiences of UPLB students – an experience, I presume, shaped not just be being in LB, but by the fact that most people in UPLB aren’t from LB. It becomes even more interesting as most of the films deal with longing and a sort of nostalgia. For example, Homesick is a montage that attempts to mimic memory. It does so through images overlaid with music appropriately entitled, “Recollection.” As a recent graduate of UPLB, standing in between the freshness of memory and the rapidness of the present, this piece appeals to me. I found its success in its attempt to be a quiet recollection of a place. It reminded me of my own moments of rumination walking along campus, sitting on one of the benches, taking in all the strong – often conflicting – emotions I have for the place that is LB.
Similarly, #MyFirstVlog (dir. Ana Salvador) deals with memory. However, instead of recollecting memory, it attempts to preserve it. I find this piece charming as it has zero attempt to gloss the LB experience with nostalgia. Unlike most vlogs, this one is messy, shaky, seemingly unrehearsed, and completely un-glorious. As an attempt to promote LB to mere citizens, it probably wouldn’t work; but to former LB citizens like me, it can incite a little a chuckle.
This brand of honesty can also be seen in Jeyl Breyk (dir. Gil Angelo Bosita). It features a humorous take on the life of three roommates. Inspired by real events (and real people, according to the makers), it approached the telling of the dormer life in an honest and unromantic way. I think the strength of the film lies in that – its ability to tell a mundane tale in a manner that is sly with humor. Maybe that is what the lives of LB dormers look like: mundane, messy, and comical in the attempt to make it look together (see: the roommate in a face mask while cramming a paper).
And, as if Jeyl Breyk didn’t already make us feel a bit shameful for our messy dormer lives, we have Sunday (dir. Mac Andre Arboleda), a portrayal of Sundays in LB as a college student. Overall, Sundays in LB are always hazy – the students are out, most restaurants are closed, and the campus is empty. This haziness, thanks to the hypnotic music of Emilio Fabregas, is accurately captured by the film. More so, the film is a straightforward portrayal of what it really means to build home in LB. I feel that because LB life is often fun and glorious, we forget that in the thick of it, people – especially students living far away from their families – are just trying to survive. The film may seem silly I tell you this: it is definitely not lying.
Kuwit (dir. Mannielieen Cagatulla and Manuel Balmeo) deals with place and the very space that is LB. LB, largely, is a university town. And with being a university town comes the high prestige attached to convenience stores. On the surface, Kuwit is but a poke at the raging emotions surrounding the closing of Ministop, but anyone who is from LB knows the many cultural and social values surrounding nearly every establishment in LB. The fact that students felt the need to make a film about it is a testament to the fact that the closing of Ministop marked the end of an era.
And Omads (dir. Juan Magno Iya), the winning film for this category, is the perfect cap to the retelling of the LB life. Sure, it is an unabashed portrayal of just one of those “college experiences” I’m not supposed to understand as the poster girl for a Boring Straight-Edge Girl, but the film is charming. And it’s funny too, for reasons I cannot quite articulate (it’s the onesies, maybe). It cleverly, innocently, and aimlessly celebrates a sort of recklessness – and that, I believe, is as LB as it gets.
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Photos courtesy of Pelikultura: The Calabarzon Film Festival and UP Film Circle.
