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I think yesterday's screening- Sunday 3:30pm at NFT 2- was the best AMIGO screening so far. The theater was packed and I did the intro because John was off doing press at the Directors Tea. That was fun for me since I know John's rap by now. Our respectful hosts tend to use words like "sadly" and "tragic" and I like to lift the tone with words like "sunshine" and "beautiful". With this movie, it's all about context.
When we returned for the Q+A, almost nobody left and the questions were the best ever.
A Filipino guy named Riley (he's from Cebu!) stood and spoke, warmly endorsing AMIGO and in a pretty long exchange with John, told the audience a lot about the neglected history of the Philipppines from a Filipino's point-of-view.
It's so important for us with AMIGO to hear from Filipinos because Filipinos understand AMIGO like no one else. Thanks, Riley, for standing up (it's not easy!) in a crowd. Write to us on this blog or on Amigo Facebook, will you? I'd like more people to hear what you have to say about AMIGO.
Thank you, BFI/LFF, from John, me, and AMIGO.
Monday, October 18, 2010
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Hi,
ReplyDeleteI'm a PhD student in Philippine History who posted before regarding the desire to see the movie. I was wondering if you have any other venues that you have scheduled in the Midwest for the screening of the movie "Amigo" this year or next spring. Because in the Midwest esp. around the Chicago area has a huge Filipino population and I am sure they would love the opportunity to see the movie and perhaps to talk to the film maker about the movie. I'm currently attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison and we have a strong Southeast Asian Studies program and one of our strong area is Philippine history. We have two major Philippine historians who specialize in the time period of the movie "Amigo", Profs. Michael Cullinane and Alfred W. McCoy.
I've also been circulating the trailer of the movie to other students as well as profs here at UW-Madison as well as my friends and family in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (where there are at least 50,000 Filipinos residing) and they seem to be interested in seeing it. Would you be open to film screening at universities?
Oh, another thing. If you want, I can send you a copy of the front page of a Filipino newspaper in Winnipeg, where they ran a front page news about "Amigo" film showing at the Toronto Film Festival, after I told them about the movie and sent them the link to the trailer.
ReplyDeleteDear Maui,
ReplyDeleteI am so happy to read your comments. This is what we hoped when we made AMIGO, that the pinoy community would discover it and spread the word. I really appreciate hearing that you are doing just that.
We have no plans yet to show AMIGO in the Midwest. Our US premier is at AFI in LA on Nov 6 and I hope you and your family and friends and faculty will send people who live in LA to that screening.
It's not easy to find distribution for thoughtful, subtitled movies, and AMIGO is no exception. I believe AMIGO will find a US distributor if Filipino-Americans and Filipinos come forward like you are and express the demand for it.
Anybody out there know how we can gather all this interest in one place so it makes a big impression?
Thank you for your reply. I've been talking to my profs and they're interested in inviting Mr. Sayles to UW-Madison to talk about the movie and perhaps be able to promote it here in the Midwest. Is there a way to contact him?
ReplyDeleteAlso in terms of gathering interests in one place, would you consider showing the film in Canada? I'm not a Fil-Am but a Fil-Canadian and as I mentioned before I'm from Winnipeg where there's more than 50,000 Filipinos residing. We've had movies from the Philippines shown there. If I can inquire for distributor in Winnipeg, would that work?