ROCHESTER, NEW YORK - After putting the Filipino craftsmanship in various film award giving bodies in the world, the Philippines’ own Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros) will be featured in ImageOut’s 14th Annual Gay and Lesbian Film Festival next month.
ImageOut is an annual project of The Rochester Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival that features world-class films. It will feature a total of 70 films from 11 countries. Featured under the 2006 Youth Project Film Series, The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros is the story of
Maximo, or Maxi, whom at 12 years old acts as the “lady of the house” in a motherless household of small time criminals in the slum area of Manila. His father sells stolen cell phones while his two older brothers are robbers. Maxi, played by Nathan Lopez, sashays the narrow paths in their area acting like a diva complete with girly hanging shirts and floral shorts, his hair is adorned with clips or alicebands. He walks as if the streets were his own catwalk. He is ultra femme and proud of his sexuality. This is highly regarded by his friends and neighbors who accept Maxi for whoever he is. His father and his brothers are proud of him, even treating him like a princess. Their lives, however, are about to change after Maxi met Victor, played by J.R. Valentin, a handsome new cop in assigned in their area. He rescued Maxi from two pranks one night and that incident opened to Maxi a new kind of feeling, a feeling he cannot control and hide. His family, on the other hand, was bothered by his being close to Victor as the rookie policeman stands by his principle; and that poses a threat to the Oliveros family’s daily living. This is were the whole story is exemplified - as Maxi gets closer to Victor, awry things get in the way, especially that his brother gets implicated in a murder case.The social reality of Manila’s poor area is reflected here – gloomy slum areas, narrow paths lined with clothesline and thick with children and women. But it is human. Poverty is a social aspect that every nation cannot avoid. This aspect makes this movie powerful – it touches the heart, it is unpretentious, it makes one’s heart coil with anguish. Director Aureaus Solito made his characters breathe life on the screen. Writer Michiko Yamamoto achieves great depth by establishing a storyline that offers more than beating the odds of a taboo story – a boy falling in love with an older man.
Film reviewers Kent Bryant and Michael Gamilla put it in the ImageOut folio, “Ultmately, The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros is a coming of age tale about spiritual and moral growth, rather than merely a story of sexual awakening. Watching Maxi’s complicated blossoming is simultaneously heartwrenching and joyful, a journey that rises beyonf its setting to touch us all with its universal truths.” The film has also won the Berlin International Film Festival, the Turin Gay and Lesbian Festival and the ImagineNative Film Festival in Toronto as well as various local awards in the Philippines. Last year, ImageOut featured two videos directed by Filipino filmmakers – Mark V. Reyes’s 19-minute video “Last Full Show” and Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo’s 20-minute video “Woman”.
The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros opened in New York City theaters last weekend.
(Published in part in Ricky Lo's column in The Philippine Star, and Sun.Star Bacolod)
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