Barber's Tales Showing on August 13 Starring Eugene Domingo
Thursday, July 03, 2014
From the creators of the internationally acclaimed film BWAKAW comes a provocative period drama about female empowerment and breaking gender barriers.
Barber’s Tales revolves around newly widowed Marilou who inherits the town’s only barbershop from her husband — a business that has been passed down by generations of men in her husband’s family.
With no other means of support, she musters the courage to run the barbershop. Despite the skills she gained from years of observation and assisting her husband, as a female barber she fails to attract any customers.
Nevertheless, things take an unexpected turn when Marilou discovers what she is truly made of -- in the midst of mockery from men, and the support of an unexpected circle of sisters.
Set at the onset of martial law during the Marcos dictatorship in the 1970s, the conservative setting of Barber’s Tales provides the perfect backdrop against which I explore the social taboos and moral values of the time to tell the story of Marilou, a woman who is caught between old traditions and modern dilemmas. Recently widowed and childless, she supports herself by continuing her husband’s barbershop. But as the first female barber in a male dominated small town, her liberal views and practices are met with opposition. As the entire country is stripped of its basic rights, Marilou must find the courage to stand out and stand up for herself.
As the title suggests, Barber’s Tales is structurally a narrative made up of tales from the barbershop, vignettes about Filipino rural life held together by themes that have personal resonance, including sexuality, identity and self-liberation.
Barber’s Tales is the second in a planned trilogy set in rural Philippines. Each film is a character study about varying kinds of isolation. Bwakaw (2012) tells the story of a grumpy aging gay man who thinks that all there is to look forward to in life is death. Mga Kuwentong Barbero
(Barber’s Tales, 2013) is about a widow imprisoned by gender expectations in the 1970s. Ama Namin (Our Father, now in preproduction) follows the plight of a boy who enters the seminary to be with the only family he has left: his father, who is a priest.
Prior to production, Barber’s Tales won 4 awards, including Best Project, at the 2013 Hong Kong Asia-Film Financing Forum, an annual project market for international filmmakers and financiers.
What inspired you to pick the story of a lady barber to tell as the second installment?
Barber’s tales is actually an old screenplay I have been developing since 1997 when it won in a national screenwriting competition in Manila. Thematically, I feel that the story fits in nicely with the issues of identity and choice that I explored in Bwakaw. But unlike Bwakaw, which is very personal and intimate, Barber’s Tales plays on a bigger canvass, and covers the tumultuous years of the Marcos dictatorship, the ramifications of which are ultimately universal and relevant up to now.
JUN ROBLES LANA is a playwright, screenwriter, TV and film director. He is the youngest Filipino to be inducted in the Hall of Fame of the Palanca Awards, the
Philippines’ most prestigious literary writing contest. His prize-winning debut screenplay “SA PUSOD NG
DAGAT” (In The Navel of The Sea), directed by his mentor Marilou Diaz-Abaya, premiered at the Panorama Section of the 1998 Berlin International Film Festival. In 2012, he wrote, directed and produced BWAKAW. The film received acclaim on the festival circuit including Toronto, New York and Tokyo, and was picked up for distribution by Fortissimo Films. Last March, he submitted his work-in-progress MGA
KUWENTONG BARBERO (Barber’s Tales) to the HongKong Asia-Film Financing Forum (HAF), where it won the Best Project Award and received in-kind grants from ARRI and post production laboratory Technicolor Bangkok.
(UPDATE: Since then, BARBER’S TALES premiered in the competition section of the 2013 TokyoInternational Film Festival, where Eugene Domingo bagged the Best Actress Award; and the Audience Award (Crystal Mulberry Prize) at the Far East International Film Festival)
Winner of the People’s Choice Award for Best Actress at the 2012 Asian Film Awards for her role in The
Woman In The Septic Tank, the country’s submission to the Academy Awards, EUGENE DOMINGO is one of the most sought-after and award-winning lead actresses in Philippine cinema.
EDDIE GARCIA received international critical acclaim and won the Best Actor Award at the 55th Asia-Pacific Film Festival and at the 2013 Asian Film Awards for his portrayal of a grumpy old gay man in Bwakaw. A highly respected and revered actor in the Philippines, Garcia is the most awarded and nominated person in the long history of the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS) Awards.
“Barber’s Tales” will be the opening film at the OzAsia Festival in Adelaide, Australia in September. Before that, the movie under APT Entertainment will have an exclusive theatrical run by Aug. 13.
The Cast:
Eugene Domingo Daniel Fernando
Eddie Garcia Sue Prado
Iza Calzado
Gladys Reyes
Shamaine Buencamino
Noni Buencamino
Nicco Manalo
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