Joseph Laban’s film “Nuwebe”, inspired by the true story of one of the youngest mothers in Philippine history, and a finalist in this year’s Cinemalaya Film Festival in Manila has also made it to four other international film festivals. "Nuwebe" will be screened at the Harlem International Film Festival in New York (Sept. 11-15, 2013), Vancouver International Film Festival in Vancouver, Canada (Sept. 26-Oct. 11, 2013), MovieMov Italian Film Festival in Rome (Sept. 13-15, 2013). The Laban film was also premiered on August 29 with additional screenings at the 37th Montreal World Film Festival, one of 105 feature films in the festival's Focus on World Cinema section.
It will be recalled that Laban’s first feature film “Cuchera”
had its international premiere at the Discovery Section of the 2011 Toronto
International Film Festival (TIFF) then screened at the Stockholm
International Film Festival (Main Competition), Cleveland International Film
Festival, Belgrade International Film Festival and Fribourg International Film
Festival. Laban hails from Boac, Marinduque.
Meanwhile, kicking off the Toronto International Film Festival
earlier this week is “The Fifth Estate”
a thriller that chronicles the emergence of anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks and
its enigmatic founder Julian Assange, played by English actor Benedict
Cumberbatch. Reuters has reported that transparency
and secrecy in the Internet age have emerged as prevalent themes in the Toronto
festival. Interestingly, “Slumdog
Millionaire” is a film that fared well in Toronto and went on to win best
picture Oscars.
