The film “Amon Banwa sa Lawod” or “Our Island of the Mangrove Moon” is the first feature film ever shot on Suyac Island which was done with the community’s permission and participation.
The film is directed by Anton Juan and was produced by the US-based Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Erehwon Center for the Arts, the Performance Laboratory, Negros Cultural Foundation, the Negros Museum, and the city government of Sagay.
It revolves around the memories of the island centered on the life, love, and passing of the people. It was devised from the play “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder and was written by Juan and Mark Garcia, a Sagaynon filmmaker, who also served as an assistant director of the film.
Juan is an internationally acclaimed theater and film director, whose film, “Winged Fragments of our Children,” premiered at the Busan International Film Festival in 2017, and won the best film at Chandler International Film Festival and Toronto International Diversity Film Festival.
Juan, in a statement, said the film would articulate the mangrove community, resurrect the lives of the people living and dead, their struggles and simple joys, their resilience, and connection with the environment, and their relationship with the sea and their protection of their mangrove island which, in turn, protects and sustains the community as a source of food, economic survival, and protection from huge flooding in the typhoon and monsoon seasons.
The central dramatic line grows from the everyday resilience of fisherfolk, living by hope, work, and faith, confronting a global problem: The erasure of a people’s historical existence by power structures and neo-colonial moves on the high seas, he added.
Juan thanked the city government of Sagay and Mayor Alfredo Marañon III for helping to create a film that will speak of the people's beauty “in these crucial times we need to consolidate creative forces.”
The film starred local actors from Sagay and Bacolod City and most of them were first time actors in a film. It wrapped production last month.
Marañon said they support this creative undertaking because they believe that film is powerful and persuasive.
The film has also the potential to promote tourism and with the strong local filmmaking movement, we can collaborate and make Sagay as a film tourism destination in Negros provided that it will be environment and community friendly respecting the culture and sensibilities of our people, the Sagay mayor added.
The film will have a scheduled screening on the island, Sagay City, and Negros Museum.