The Rapture of Fe

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For its sensitive portrayal of a woman caught between an abusive husband and an impotent lover, in the process illuminating our understanding of human relationships. The film stood out for its unflinching realism and strong performances that brought alive the complexity of a woman’s quest for fulfillment.

http://www.cairofilmfest.org/newprizes/prizes.aspx

image taken by the AFP and retrieved from the Getty Images

If there are any organization or schools who’d like to screen our movie, please email ang.alem@gmail.com and we can discuss the possibility of bringing “…Fe” to you. It can be both an educative experience as well as a fundraising opportunity. As both the producer and the writer-director are teachers, they can discuss the contents and the art behind the movie. The Women’s Crisis Center can also talk about Violence Against Women (VAW).

Here is our movie’s trailer on YouTube:

The University of the Philippines will play host for three afternoon screenings of “Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe” sponsored by the UPB Jodera. Catch us on Saturday, November 23 at 1PM, 3PM and 5PM at the UP Baguio Auditorium.

http://www.bintlfilmfest.com

After tying for the Special Jury Prize at the 2009 Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival and winning the Golden Prize at the International Digital Competition of the Cairo International Film Festival, “The Rapture of Fe” travels to South America for our Bahamas premiere. Running from December 10-17, 2009, the Bahamas International Film Festival is the second international film festival that “Fe” will compete in. “Fe” is included in the Spirit of Freedom-Narrative category, one of the main competition in the festival.

We’re set to compete with USA’s Easier with Patience, the Dominican Republic’s La Soga, Canada’s Passenger Side and South Africa’s Skin.

From the Philippine Daily Inquirer website : http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/entertainment/entertainment/view/20091122-237773/RP-film-named-best-in-Cairo-fest

FILIPINO filmmaker Alvin Yapan’s “Ang Panggagahasa Kay Fe (The Rapture of Fe)” topped the Digital Competition section of the 33rd Cairo International Film Festival held from Nov. 10-20.

The Filipino film won the Golden Award which comes with a cash prize of $10,000 from one of the top-ranked festivals in the world.

The silver prize went to films from India (“First Time”) and France (“Exile in Paris”). The Golden Pyramid in the main section went to a film from Finland (“Letters to Father Jacob”).

A Special Jury Prize co-winner in this year’s Cinemalaya, “Fe” was cited by Cairo jurors “for its sensitive portrayal of a woman (Irma Adlawan) caught between an abusive husband and an impotent lover… [and for] illuminating our understanding of human relationships.”

The festival’s website noted that the film “stood out for its unflinching realism and strong performances that brought alive the complexity of a woman’s quest for fulfillment.”

Other Cinemalaya 2009 entries have won in festivals like Venice (“Engkwentro”), Lyon (“Sanglaan”) and Pusan (“Astig”).

The last time the Philippines won in Cairo was in 1995, when Joel Lamangan’s “The Flor Contemplacion Story” brought home the Best Picture and Best Actress (for Nora Aunor) trophies in the fest’s main competition.

Yapan previously won acclaim for his earlier efforts, the short film “Rolyo” in 2007 and the feature film “Huling Pasada” (which he co-directed with Paul Sta. Ana) in 2008. “Fe” is his first solo feature film.

Before leaving for Cairo, Yapan told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (mother company of INQUIRER.net): “Getting support and approval from the international scene is very important considering the gloomy forecast for the future of our film industry.”

He called the prospect of winning “a grace from God.”

“It’s a great time to make films now,” he said. “New paths are being discovered. New methods are being explored.”

For “Fe,” he used an HPX 500 HD camera. “Since I am aiming for a poetic narrative, I wanted the film quality, in terms of the aesthetics, to veer toward the classical, almost mainstream. I wanted to trick the audience into believing that what they’re seeing is conventional when it’s really not.”

Prior to Cairo, “Fe” was screened in New Delhi and Chicago fests. Next stop for “Fe” is the Bahamas fest where it will be competing again next month.

http://charliekoon.blogspot.com/2009/08/dark-fruits.html

It is fairly meritorious what Alvin Yapan has done, he took the elements of common Filipino fear and infused it into his current Cinemalaya offering, Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe, under the banner of pontifical local feminism no less. As with small-town frights, the bucolic atmosphere is first scratched by a gossip, seemingly innocuous whispers, a small bird disemboweled on the clean grass. Then it begins, under the picnic cloth of hardworking rural artisans and artificial marital civility lie a darkness that if viewed closely, is scarcely different from the desire that created it.

And how cleverly the disconcerting insinuations have been woven, which along with a few stylistic flourishes, effectively comprise the better half of the film. It almost has that Blair-Witchian factor, I never took a second thought on how disturbing a patchily woven basket of mangosteens could be. Along with some sibilant window calls stitched on a quiveringly restrained but brilliant musical score, the production has achieved a contextually nuanced film that burrows itself into a reluctantly curious consciousness. Yapan is truly a director of his time, technically proficient and with a flair for emotional urgency. Yet the film is not entirely preachy, not exactly what I would expect from something endorsed by the Women’s Crisis Center. Still it is a cautionary tale, shattering the stereotype that all abused women are bleating weaklings. Irma Adlawan’s Fe is no wilted lamb, but her helplessness provides another crude specter of societal inequity, just the type of message the foundations are gunning for. Hence it is unclear if the movie’s core lies in eliciting fear or social outrage. If you wish to scare, suck blood, if you want a rally, paint with it. One must not push to do both. The ambivalence could certainly be off-putting to the pedestrian gatherer, but what do you expect from an indie film?

Another aspect of Panggagahasa that fulfilled expectations was the title character. Rapture, rape, and the ravenous were all portrayed with an unyielding constancy that only Adlawan could deliver, the male characters only served as rocks on the opposite sides of the fulcrum. Ever since Pusang Gala Adlawan has already exhibited a noteworthy thespian range that could approximate the breath of the modern Filipina’s psyche. In this movie that frail and elusive landscape is accentuated more with excruciating quietude than screams of pain, truly a Filipina proclivity. Black-eyes veiled under stupid excuses, ignorance mistaken for womanly trust, so silent the usages of that unfunny wound. The pleasure is portrayed similarly, but the fact that it was portrayed at all is reason enough for celebration. True to his artistic predilections, Yapan is tastefully fearless in his endeavors. The rape scene was graciously no Irreversible and the longer take of Fe burying the black fruits of her trepidation yielded so much more of the intrinsic state-of-affairs of an abused individual.

Mainstream horror films could certainly learn from this movie. Presently there is a cavity that is clawing to be filled. The franchise should start realizing that in fear, less is more. Directors from Thailand understand this, so why is the catching up so belated. This is what Yapan employed which made his work quite effective that is until the ending, definitely risky and perhaps potentially disastrous almost to the point of negating the effect that the entire movie has accumulated. But the risk is a product of his generation. Weaned with magical realism his was an expected seduction, ultimately to show the object of dread only for it to share an almost avuncular caveat to the furniture-making enemy lover. It could have been worst. I thought Fe was going to get banged on the newly carved Sala piece. In the end, post-modern directors cannot help but to be ironic, whether they decry postmodernism or not. It’s charming though. Why choose your carabao-oriented husband Dante (Nonie Buencamino), or Arturo (TJ Trinidad) for that matter when you can have a real man, one who’s not really a man, who lives in a tree of undying love. Who says there’s no romance in fear?

Written by: Alex Milla (Guest Critic)

A review by Gary Deviles in yesterday’s issue of Philippine Daily Inquirer

MYTHS DEPICTING VIOlence against women and the glorification of men who perpetrate such violence abound. There are the classic Greek myths about Leda, Io, Europa, Cassandra, Philomela, and Kainis, all raped by gods and kings.

Some say these myths are indication of the triumph of patriarchy against matriarchy in early societies, and others say these are oftentimes symbolic resolutions of unresolved conflicts.

In Vim Yapan’s “Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe” (The Rapture of Fe), which won the Special Jury Prize winner in the recent 5th Cinemalaya Film Festival, myth becomes our collective trauma and fantasy as the film narrative weaves our past and present, personal victimization and political consciousness.

The story is about Fe, an overseas Filipino worker who has been retrenched as a consequence of an ailing global economy. At the onset we are already confronting the classic anxiety against the contradiction of market economy, as OFWs, in particular female OFWs, become the ultimate objects of our collective desire for mobilization and transnational fantasy of modernization and development.

Hence, the rape of Fe is the violence committed by bureaucratic inadequacy and corruption, and the injustice intrinsic ultimately in a global market economy.

Like all cases of rape, a victim suffers not once but in sustained and recurring instances. Here, Fe is also a battered wife, as her husband Dante beats her up on mere suspicion of having an illicit affair with her previous boyfriend Arturo. The story, therefore, attempts to weave the political with the personal, the allegorical rape with domestic violence.

But the story diverges from the usual allegory since the film also entwines the magical and supernatural, as one of Fe’s lovers in the end is a kapre, a local mythological creature who abducts women. This part is the crux of the film’s narrative.

Viewers tend to pathologize Fe since victims of domestic violence can become psychotic, and thus the kapre apparition can only be understood as one of her hallucinations. Such understanding of the film is a dead giveaway.

More than myth

However, myth is more than a good familiar story.

Thus, the film is not just an allegorical narrative, but also our disavowal of myths in general, our inability to accept other realities, and our refusal of the supernatural and otherworldly.

We condemn Fe mercilessly as we would revile our pre-colonial past, such that Fe’s world has nothing to do with us, irreconcilable with our so-called modern sense. We want to believe we are rational and have banished all forms of superstitions and folk beliefs.

In truth, our experience of modernization through urbanization and global economy has always been one of incongruity, in which the mysterious and the absurd exist along with our coherent experiences.

Ultimately, myths can be the last refuge of women, victims and the marginalized like Fe. This is the reason that “Panggagahasa” is not translated as the “Rape of Fe” but rather as the “Rapture of Fe,” since rapture connotes the ripening of myth itself, as it spreads and fulfills various degrees of usage, historical, collective or otherwise.

“Panggagahasa Kay Fe” will compete in Cairo Film Festival on Nov. 10-20, and be exhibited at Osian’s Cinefan Film Festival in New Delhi, Bahamas International Film Festival, and Chicago Film Festival in December.

After our successful screenings at the CCP, UP, Chicago Film Fest and the Osian’s Cinefan Festival in New Delhi, “Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe” (“The Rapture of Fe”) will now be shown at select cinemas in the Philippines. So far, we have Robinson’s Galleria and Cinema Cebu.

The screening coincides with our participation in the Cairo International Film Festival as we represent the Philippines in the International Digital Competition. This marks our 3rd film festival after the Chicago International Film Festival and the recently concluded Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema in New Delhi.

The Movie and Television Review and Classification Board of the Philippines has approved without cuts the movie and gave us a rating of R18. Unfortunately, the movie poster did not survive the board and so we have to tweak it a little bit.

Please help us spread the word. We only have 1 week of screening time as all the theaters will be removing the smaller films to accommodate the release of “New Moon” next week.

Join us at our INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE at the Chicago International Film Festival, After Dark Program .

Here is our schedule:

October 9 (Friday) 1030PM
October 13 (Tuesday) 930PM
October 16 (Friday) 1100PM

I shall be attending all the shows to greet our kababayan and guest who will come and support our movie. Please help us spread the word.

Details are found at the Chicago Film Fest website: http://www.chicagofilmfestival.com/films_and_schedule/movie.php?show=the_rapture_of_fe