AMIGO Returns to the Philippines!

We are so happy to announce that Amigo is on tour (lakbay) in the Philippines! Amigo's commercial release is currently scheduled for July 6, just after Fil-Am Friendship Day July 4. Amigo Lakbay is our way of fueling word-of-mouth especially among educators and students. You'll see from the schedule below that among our regional partners are many distinguished universities.

• 09th -------------Bohol

• 10th-11th -------Cebu

• 12th-13th -------Davao

• 15th ------------San Beda College Alabang (1PM) / Cultural Center of the Philippines [CCP] (5PM)

• 16th ------------ANC Guesting (10AM) /  La Salle screening (T.B.D) / Fully Booked [the fort high-street] (6PM)

• 17th ------------- Holy Angels [Angeles,Pampanga] (T.B.D)

• 19th-20th --------- Baguio City

• 21st ------------- Bacolod

• 22nd ------------- UP Diliman [University of the Philippines, Film Center] (5:30PM and 8:30PM)

John and I are so happy to be back in the Philippines.  And not just because we are escaping snowstorms back home.

We will be returning to friends and familiar faces (Bohol!) And visiting for the first time places we've only heard of like Davao (Mindanao!), Baguio (everyone says it's beautiful and cold) and of course Bacolod. After so many years of stories of Joel and Mario's college days we'll finally visit the scene of the crime.

Goodbye Maritina and Art- Welcome 2011

Happy New Year, Baryo and Amigo friends. See me here in our living room, all decorated for Christmas. With me is Maritina Romulo. Maritina and her fiance Art Acuña came up for the night just as the decorating began. Art plays the assasin Locsin in AMIGO. Wait till you see hi.We are grateful to Art and Maritina for their enthusiastic work promoting AMIGO in the US. These two people are powerhouses! We'll catch up with them in Manila when we return to the Philippines in Febrary.
Stay tuned for details of AMIGO LAKBAY when we take AMIGO from province to province in February 2011.

Follow a new blog about AMIGO

http://baryoamigohq.blogspot.com
is the new blog from Cooper Resabal. Cooper wore many hats in the making of AMIGO. He worked with Rolly and his team in locations, explaining this crazy process of filmmaking to the villagers of Toril and environs. Then Cooper joined the AD Dep, as interpreter to the village extras and local cast when the limits of John's Tagalog and our AD Kokoy's Boholano required some direct intervention. Cooper became our friend (and maybe Guardian of AMIGO) and now with Dieter and Bee is organizing the Bohol premiere of AMIGO in February.
Here's a wonderful picture of me with Cooper on the day we cut down bamboo.

John Sayles "monumental" new book A MOMENT IN THE SUN

John's book is being excerpted in McSweeney's Quarterly, as a booklet in a little inside-front-cover pocket of Issue 37 which should be out in early March 2012. Keep your eye out for it. Because you can't read the text on the booklet cover displayed here, below you can read a description of the chapters McSweeney's has culled from the Big Novel.

"It’s 1897,  Hod Brackenridge has left behind a miner’s life to follow news of gold to the Yukon. But with a new century looming, and war on the way, fate will soon throw him in with the criminals and con men that prey on hopeful men like him. And then it will take him much further than that. 

The four chapters included here form just one thread of A Moment in the Sun’s first act. Spanning five years and half a dozen countries, John Sayles’s latest novel takes the whole era in its sights—from the white coup in Wilmington, North Carolina, to the bloody dawn of U.S. interventionism in Cuba and the Philippines. Built on the voices of a breathtaking range of exiles in search of opportunity, the full book is a tremendous chronicle of a pivotal time. This is a story as big as its subject: history rediscovered through the lives of the people who made it happen. 

John Sayles’s previous novels include Pride of the Bimbos, Los Gusanos, and the National Book Award–nominated Union Dues. He has directed seventeen feature films, including Matewan, Eight Men Out, and Lone Star, and received a John Cassavetes Award, a John Steinbeck Award, and two Academy Award nominations. His latest film, Amigo, was completed in 2010."

80 degrees with scattered clouds

That's the temperature in Mar del Plata today. Here in Clinton Corners NY it's 22 with snow on the ground. Before the memory fades, meet some of our friends and companions from Mar del Plata.
Above you'll see Pablo Conde with his handsome boss, José Martínez Suárez. Pablo is the Programmer and José is the President. They are a great pair.

Left above is John with Helga Landauer. Helga made a beautiful movie called A Film About Anna Ahkmatova. One of the pleasures of Mar del Plata was having the time to actually see movies and this is a movie we really enjoyed and would not have discovered outside a very good festival.

And then right below that is John with filmmaker Cristina Raschia and me and Hal Hartley, the other tall American director. Cristina was our host in Buenos Aires. Here we are at El Maipú- delicious empanadas and Sorrentinos (little pillow-like raviolis).
I'm only sorry that I have no pictures to show you of Fernando Martín Peña or Alvaro Buela. Fernando is planning a Sayles retro at MALBA, the MOMA of BsAs, where he is the film curator and then we are going to visit Alvaro in Uruguay. 2012. Join us.

LA/AFI

Here's where I begin to be photographed with the Who's Who of Filipinos in the US! Me with Winston Emano (David Magdael & Associates) whose work with Fil-Am Arts helped to fill the beautiful Grauman's Chinese Theater.
Then it's me with my first Consul General ever! Con Gen Mary Jo Aragon is so gracious and helpful. And for a change, look who's taller!
Thanks to all our friends for making our stay in LA fun: Carolyn and Nancy were our hosts and the rest of you are too many to mention.

After the whirlwind

We are finally home, after so many trips to film festivals. Too many airports, too many airplanes, too many seats that don't recline, but we've had a chance to show AMIGO to many of our good friends.

Here I am with Fiona Mitchell at the London International Film Festival. Why didn't I take pictures with Ros and John Hubbard, Jonathan Rutter, and the MacNair family, proper? Missed my chance.
From LIFF the best film was THE ARBOR by Clio Barnes. I hope some US distributor has the brains to buy it for release here.