Neriza Sarmiento - Saito's On the Road to:
Osaka Asian Film Festival With “Tanabata’s Wife”
The 14th Osaka Asian Film Festival was held from March 8-17, with films from Japan, Vietnam, India, Sri Lanka, China, Hongkong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Programming director, Sozo Teruoka, said that the films for this festival were selected mostly for their greatness which means how valuable they are in the present world.
From the Philippines, 3 films were in the competition category. GUSTO KITA WITH ALL MY HYPOTHALAMUS, directed by Dwein Baltazar, TANABATA’S WIFE, directed by Choy Pangilinan, Charlson Ong and Lito Casaje, THE GIRL IN THE ORANGE DRESS, directed by Jay Abello and two more films for the Special Programs, BILLIE and EMMA directed by Samantha Lee and THE ETERNITY BETWEEN SECONDS directed by Alec Figuracion. The Film Development Council of the Philippines, is also celebrating its 100 years of Philippine Cinema. This year’s festival campaign poster is the powerful middle aged woman called “Osaka no Obachan - fearless, robust and colorful. When I went to the exclusive interview with the cast of “Tanabata’s Wife“, I felt exactly one of them. That week, I had a bicycle accident, barely able to walk with torn
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ligaments, but I was determined to go on with the interview! With the pain came the pleasure of meeting three impressive people - MAI FANGLAYAN (as Fas-ang), MIYUKI KAMIMURA (as Tanabata) and JUAN CARLO TAROBAL (Assistant Director). Last September 2018, this film swept nine awards at the TOFARM FESTIVAL held at the Shangrila Hotel, including Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Picture and Best Directors. Based on a real story written by Sinai Hamada in the 1930’s about Japanese immigrant farmers in La Trinidad, Benguet. It was the story of Tanabata and a young Bontoc woman, who came along one day with two other friends to find work in the big city. He needed day laborers to help in his vegetable farm. Only Fas-ang accepted the offer and worked tirelessly with Tanabata, from cultivating to harvesting up to selling the vegetables in the city. This brought them closer together, until they became man and wife. Soon, their son was born, but it seemed that the movie theaters was more attractive for Fas-ang and she felt that Tanabata did not care about her opinions and she was not even consulted about the name of her baby. When she finally left “the cage“ with her baby, she flew into the arms of a former lover from her tribe. Days of agony followed for Tanabata wondering where his wife and son were. Meanwhile,
MARCH - APRIL 2019
Fas-ang’s lover felt that the baby was becoming a nuisance so he devised a way to get rid of him but Fas-ang came right to the rescue. The final scene of the movie shows Fas-ang with the baby running towards Tanabata’s house while Tanabata’s face appeared like a Noh mask on the wide cinematic screen, a crystallized vision of man’s pure emotions! After watching the film, the audience in the theater was enthralled. One could hear a pin drop and some were quietly sobbing. MIYUKI KAMIMURA (Tanabata) was acclaimed Best Actor at the TOFARM Film Festival. A native of Osaka, he started his International Acting Career at the age of 18 with the Piccolo Theater. In Tokyo, he also studied acrobatic theater and from there went on to organize drama workshops in Singapore at the age of 30. Since then, he has conducted more workshops on physical theater in Mindanao. Before the end of March, he will be in Bohol for another drama workshop. When I asked him if he is more like Tanabata in real life, he commented that in some ways, maybe and smiled. He also mentioned that the scene where he hit the low table while Fas-ang complained about something, “It was difficult to portray complicated emotions of anger and frustration.” MAI FANGLAYAN graduated from St. Louis University in Baguio City with a degree in Mass Communications. She attributes her remarkable performance as Fas-ang to her theater training. Asked about a scene that was challenging for her, she quickly replied that it was the
