Indie film Biak-Na-Bato premiers in Bulacan

By Dino Balabo

Updated March 05, 2009 05:13 PM

(www.philstar.com)

MALOLOS CITY, Philippines -- The call to save Biak-Na-Bato, a national park in northern Bulacan, gained support with the premier of an independent film of same title at the Cabanas Cinema here Tuesday night.

Shot largely in the towns of San Miguel and Donya Remedios Trinidad in northern Bulacan, the film Biak-Na-Bato tells the tale of an environmentalist played by Inez Veneracion, whose husband in the film died in a mining site.

“It’s clearly a save Biak-Na-Bato movie,” said Paolo Buera, the 27-year old director who hails from San Miguel town where he started writing the script two years ago amid calls to stop the impact of global warming.

Buera explained that to save Biak-Na-Bato, one must not only focus on the environment, but on the historical heritage of the province and of the nation.

He said that at the end of the 1800, Biak-Na-Bato served as the fortress of Filipino revolutionaries led by then General Emilio Aguinaldo against colonial Spain. It was the site where the Pact of Biak-Na-Bato was signed by Aguinaldo and Spanish colonial officials after the revolutionaries drafted the first constitution of the country.

“Hopefully, the movie will open the minds of people to protect, conserve, preserve and develop Biak-Na-Bato,” Buera said, noting that marble mining operations within the national park has been rampant for years.

This was echoed by Councilor Gemma Sevilla Alcantara, the lone elected public official from San Miguel town who made it to the movie premier.

“Nakakabahala na ang pagminina ng marmol sa Biak-Na-Bato (The extensive marble mining at Biak-Na-Bato is now alarming),” she said, noting that Biak-Na-Bato used to be a part of San Miguel town until the creation of Donya Remedios Trinidad town in 1976 that was carved out of the towns of San Miguel, Angat and Norzagaray.

The movie premier was also attended by instructors and students of the Bulacan State University (BulSU) here where some of the actors and actresses like Kristine Nieto and Ralph Ellis Lopez came from.

Both Nieto and Lopez are sophomore students of the BulSU Institute of Arts and Letters, taking up Mass Communications major in broadcasting.

In the movie, Nieto plays the role of a student of Inez Veneracion who joined protests for environment protection, while Lopez takes the role of a young forest ranger.

“Masaya kami at excited sa movie na ito (We are happy and excited with this movie),” said Lopez.

Biak-Na-Bato is the first independent film directed by Buera, who plans to shoot another movie about Palawan within the year. As a member of the Greenpeace Foundation, he said that he chose plots that deal on environment protection to open the minds of people.

Buera also expressed confidence that independent films that tackle environmental themes will make it to the mainstream. He, however, admitted that they continue to struggle on a shoestring budget.

The film remains to be rated by the Movie Television Review and Classification Board, but Buera hopes it will get a general patronage rating and will be shown in theaters nationwide.