On The Road To: Tanabata's Wife

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

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,

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

“bolo scene“ when she was running barefoot in the forest in search of her baby who was abducted by her lover. She had wounds in her feet as a result but Mai was quick to add that “It’s part of the role“. In the future, she hopes to be in action films because there are very few Filipino action stars.

JUAN CARLO TAROBAL is one of the Philippines‘ promising young filmmakers who won as best co-screenplay for Tanabata’s Wife with Charlson Ong, Choy Pangilinan and Maureen Portus. He is also known for other movies like “Lupang Pangako“ in 2015 and Islabodan: Free Men in 2018 produced by the UP Film Institute‘s Likha Adarna. For Tanabata’s Wife, he was asked by

Director Lito Casaje to join the production. When I asked about one “member of the staff“ who was with the team from beginning to end, everyone burst into laughter! Incidentally, the filming started on July 19, Tanabata Day. Yes, THE RAIN was with the filming all throughout so the pitter patter of the falling rain collaborated with the sound of the nose flute and the tribal chants.

Although the three directors could not attend the festival, especially Charlson Ong who is a multi-awarded Writer for the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards, we were very privileged to have met Kamimura-san, Mai and Carlo. I also

missed Dr. Jina Umali, who also contributed her Theater expertise in Tanabata’s Wife. Ong wrote the script of a musical we produced in 1995 in Osaka’s Dawn Center while Dr. Jina played the lead role, Loretta! My grateful appreciation to them for the opportunity of working with the Philippines‘ great thespians!

As the old legend of Tanabata says, “If it rains, Orihime and Higoboshi cannot meet on Star Festival.” It really rained on awards night but even if our entries did not get any award this time, let us hope that they will join more film festivals in the future.