CELEBRITY WORLD PH
By Crispina M. Belen
Vince Tanada - The man behind 'Katips
Jerome Ponce and Vince Tanada
The acclaimed movie "Katips" will finally be shown in moviehouses, most notably in all SM Cinemas nationwide, and also at Ayala Malls. The screening in moviehouses will start on August 3.
Translated from its original musical form as "Katips: Mga Bagong Katipunero" into the big screen, "Katips" was first performed in 2016, winning the Aliw Awards for Best Musical Performance that year.
Vince Tanada, the producer, director and lead actor said "I believe that sharing the story of students fighting for freedom in the middle of a force too big for them to control would a timely metaphorical representation about our society today as we fight against the menace that continues to eat at our freedom as human beings."
With great pride, Vince added that "Katips" received 17 nominations in the 70th FAMAS Awards, held today July 30, 2022 at the historic Metropolitan Theater..
The nominations are for Best Visual Effects - Outpost Visual Frontier for John Joseph Tan; Best Sound - Outpost Visual Frontier for Don Don Mendoza; Best Original Song: "Manhid," music by Pipo Cifra, lyrics by Vince Tanada; Best Musical Score for Pipo Cifra; Best Editing for Mark Jason Sucgang; Best Production Design for Roland Rubenecia; Best Cinematography for Manuel Abanto; Best Screenplay for Vince Tanada; Best Supporting Actor: Mon Confiado and Johnrey Rivas; Best Supporting Actress, Adelle Ibarrientos Lim; Best Director, Vince Tanada; Best Actor for Vince Tanada and Jerome Ponce; Best Actress, Nicole Laurel Asencio; and Best Picture, Katips by Philstagers Films.
About Vince M. Tanada, from his own words:
"As lawyer who pursued my artistic passion by starting the Philippine' Stagers Foundation Inc. (PSF) back in 2001 with the intent to educate as many youths as we can and train as many artists with the passion and talent for theatre, I am proud that it eventually grew into the Philippines' premiere and biggest touring theatre company. The pandemic greatly affected our dedication to bring our musical plays that at the time was averaging at least 500 performances a year. It was part of our artistic thrust to educate audiences all over the country - not only in the power of the arts but in teaching the young and old alike of the explosive force that knowledge of history has, in whatever form it will take.
"But the Arts will always have a way to manifest even in times of difficulty. Last year, in the heat of the ongoing pandemic, Philstager's Films was born as a web-based media outfit in our way to keep our passion burning and to somehow give work to some of our more displaced talents. For almost one year, with an ever-growing viewership and engagement, we believe that the time has come for our small film outfit to grow.
"What better way to do it but to magnify one of our most successful musicals into the big screen?"
"As a WRITER, the play was written with the help of a historian to make sure the chronological accuracy of events is given justice. I support against history revisionism as a parasitic fiber that continues to gnaw at society today, especially the young. As a movie, the screenplay has undergone a revamp without affecting the narrative. I did this to make sure that the film remains neutral in its political stand and only continues as a statement of facts about the realities from the 70s until the latter 80s through the eyes of fictional students who might have very well been real people in the guise of different names.
"As a DIRECTOR, the film was shot using various styles. Since it's a musical, this is incomparable to any other historical musicals that has ever been done in the country so far. Using pseudo-realistic techniques and metaphors, the movie is an exploration on how vast a filmmaker can make use of music, lights, costumes, visual effects and symbolisms in order to deliver a story as poignant and as life-changing as reality, experienced first-hand will be for viewers."
"Katips'" Synopsis:
When his University of the Philippines Professor was abducted by the government-controlled Metropol during a demonstration of different groups in the mountainside that was Mendiola, Greg, a medical student and the leader of the National Union of Students in the Philippines (NUSP), along with other freedom fighting groups stood their ground and began a vigil until the Metropol came back and used force to subdue the protest. Despite the blood and gore, the burning desire for freedom grew within the hearts of those who were brutally subjugated. But their fight did not stop there.
In a safehouse aptly named the "Katips House" owned by Alet, a 30-year-old activist, we are introduced to Panyong, a subversive writer for the underground newspaper, "Ang Bayan", and other characters that keep the fight for freedom.
After the Declaration of the Martial Law, during a strike for the welfare of workers, two other students were seized; Art, a freshman student and photographer to the school paper and Estong, leader of the worker's union. Soon after, Alet was also snatched and all three were separately tortured and became part of the statistics of desaparecidos, the unaccounted radicals branded as insurgents during the days when the Writ of Habeas Corpus was no longer in effect. When the decaying corpse of Alet was found beside a ditch in a far-flung area in Bulacan, the fight for freedom took Greg and Panyong to the mountains for safety, while Lara looked after the Katips Home, she was a former New York actress who just recently took up the cause after learning that her father, Greg's captured professor, was killed by no other than the government she used to idolize.
Years pass, and during the heat of the Edsa Revolution, a news article revealed to Lara about the death of two rebels during an encounter, she was tearfully surprised when an injured Greg arrives and informs her that he was somehow spared and only Panyong was slayed at gunpoint. The couple made a tearful reunion and it was only then that Greg found out that he has a son; only making his homecoming all the more bittersweet.
Several decades later, in the grand opening of the Bantayog ng mga Bayani, a memorial to the fallen of the Martial Law, the characters of the movie meet once more; those that survived, and it is revealed that the movie is a book memoir of no other than an aged Panyong as a call for unity of a people still wanting of a freedom that is always beyond their grasp.
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