By RAMIL DIGAL GULLE
abs-cbnNEWS.com

Filipino filmmaker Brillante Mendoza and the cast of his film "Serbis", which is competition for the Cannes Film Festival's prestigious Palm d'Or and other coveted awards, received a red carpet welcome in the French city on Sunday.

Mendoza was accompanied by actors Gina Pareño, Jacklyn Jose, Coco Martin, Krstofer King, Julio Diaz, Mercedes Cabral; scriptwriter Armando Lao and producer Ferdie Lapuz. The buzz at the festival is that critics and festival directors are looking at Pareño and Jose--who play mother and daughter in the film--as strong contenders for the Best Actress award.

"Serbis" the first Filipino film to be accepted at the Cannes competition in 24 years. The last Filipino film to compete there was "Bayan Ko" by the late National Artist for Film Lino Brocka in 1984. It was screened for critics, jurors and festival audiences on Sunday.

The winners of this year's Cannes film festival competition will be announced on May 25.

Critics found the theme of Mendoza's opus quite compelling:  the film is about a family that moves into a dilapidated porno theater and turns it into a front for a prostitution den, letting the audience decide whether the family's actions, prompted by their poverty, are morally justified in Philippine society where many kinds of whoring--not just commercial sex--abound. 

Mendoza is determined to screen his erotic opus in the Philippines, despite the possibility of it not passing the approval of the censors. He said however that he's willing to try and put his film through the process imposed by the Movie, Film and Television Classification Board.

Harsh realities
The title "Serbis" (service), refers to male prostitutes who ply their services to the gay cinema-going clients. Mendoza, whose "Foster Child" screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at Cannes last year, acknowledged that his latest picture offered a tough look at Filipino life and has only dim commercial prospects at home.

"Moviegoers will go to a theatre to fantasise. "They don't want to see poverty, to see reality. They don't want to see what they see every day."," Mendoza told the Agence France Presse.

His "Serbis" barely made it to the world's biggest cinema showcase. He shot the film in just 12 days and spent a month in post-production that only wrapped this month. He sent a rough cut to the selection committee late last month.

At a press conference Sunday, Mendoza said the movie-house set of the film was still operating today.

Studded with shots of male prostitutes servicing clients as a young boy looks on, blocked toilets, family tensions, a boil being popped with a bottle, or a man cutting his toe-nails, the movie almost comes across as a documentary on the seamy side of life.

"My style is very different from mainstream, more on emotion," Mendoza said. "I like my actors to add emotion to the characters they play, that they forget they're acting. It's more about portraying a character than acting for a camera."

Asked about his use of an at times almost deafening sound of street noise in the background, Mendoza said "the sound is really part of the story. This family operates a movie theatre right in the middle of the city where there is a lot of noise going on."

Also representing the Philippines is Raya Martin's "Now Showing", running in the Directors' Fortnight this year.

The picture -- almost five hours long -- is about a young girl growing up in Manila, dealing with a grandmother who used to be an actress and an aunt who sells pirated DVDs.

The recognition that comes with the invitation to Cannes has raised hopes of a rebirth for the struggling Philippines movie industry -- once one of the largest in the world but now hit by rampant piracy, high taxes and foreign imports.

The independent movie scene is largely overlooked in the Philippines, and both Mendoza and Martin say their works were financed largely by grants from foreign foundations. With reports from Danny Buenafe (ABS-CBN Europe) and the Agence France Presse.