Limelight

For admirers and supporters of Philippine independent films, the last 10 days of October were good. That’s how long the Quezon City government-backed Third QCinema International Film Festival ran. During the festival, dozens of films—including eight new full-length features and five documentaries in competition—were shown at Gateway, Robinsons Galleria and TriNoma malls. 

By Sandy Cohen / The Associated Press Los Angeles—For Seal, songwriting is like therapy. And since splitting from model-television host Heidi Klum in 2012, he’s been immersed. 

By Alvin I. Dacanay A week after popular noontime show Eat Bulaga’s “Sa Tamang Panahon” (At the Right Time) 36th-anniversary charity concert—which saw young performers Alden Richards and Maine “Yaya Dub” Mendoza, better known together as “AlDub,” meet unhindered in person for the first time—broke ticket and Twitter records, United States-based Internet media company BuzzFeed joined the growing list of …

By Alicia Rancilio / The Associated Press New York—The last time Drew Barrymore released a book about her life, it was 1991’s Little Girl Lost, about her troubled childhood. 

In a rare occurence, broadcasting giants ABS-CBN Corp. and GMA Network Inc. are set to co-host a public television conference at the former’s Dolphy Theater on November 6 and the Luxent Hotel in Quezon City on the 7th. 

Let me begin this column by offering congratulations. First, to acclaimed actress Shamaine Centenera-Buencamino, who received a best actress nomination at the Ninth Annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards (Apsa) for her marvelous performance in writer-director Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo’s offbeat comedy Lorna. Her nomination is the only one the Philippines got this year, and the country’s 10th since the Apsa …

By Yuri Kageyama / The Associated Press Tokyo—Celebrated Filipino director Brillante Ma. Mendoza, taking center stage at the Tokyo International Film Festival, is pursuing a collaboration with other Asian filmmakers—a cultural connection that might be as simple as rice. 

In 1979, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now premiered in Hollywood amid much controversy. Shot in a fishing village in Baler town, Aurora province, the Vietnam War film took way too long to shoot and went way over budget. When Coppola, his actors and his crew left the town in 1977, they had no idea their film would have such an …

Early this month, Sen. Grace Poe-Llamanzares urged public schools to hold screenings of historical films, such as the award-winning Bonifacio: Ang Unang Pangulo and the blockbuster Heneral Luna, for their students and initiate meaningful discussions on these biopics with them.

Review by Lindsey Bahr / The Associated Press Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, much like its misunderstood litigator, is a film that plays the long game. This complex Cold War drama, soaked in shadows, blues, grays and furrowed brows, is a slow burn that challenges the audience to trust where it’s going.