Film depicting Panay epic getting more international attention
By Tara Yap
ILOILO CITY -- A film that tells the story from the Epic of Panay is getting more international attention.
The film ‘Sa Paglupad Ka Banog’ (The Flight of Banog) has drawn numerous screenings in international festivals, becoming the only film from Southeast Asia that will be included in the 33rd São Paulo International Short Film Festival 2022 in Brazil next month.
“This will be our Latin American Premiere,” announced director Elvert Bañares, an indie filmmaker from Iloilo.
The upcoming screening in Brazil is the latest since its premiere at the 38th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival last May 5 in California, United States.
It was also screened at the DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival in Washington, D.C., United States last July 14-17.
Earlier this month, the film was also screened at the Maoriland Film Festival in New Zealand.
It was the first Filipino film to be selected at the largest indigenous film festival in the Southern Hemisphere.
The film adapted into the screen only tells a portion of the ‘Hinilawod,’ the epic from the mountains of Central Panay that is uniquely the oral literature of the Panay Bukidnon indigenous peoples.
Specifically, a father teaching his youngest son the binanog, or the dance that mimics the movement of a Visayan hawk.
The Panay Bukidnon themselves not only acted in the film, but also participated in both pre-production and post-production work.