Wondering if there’s any Filipino film in this year’s Cannes International Film Festival? There’s one that made the cut. “Harvest,” a short film by Pamela Ll. Reyes, has been accepted in the prestigious festival’s Court MetrageShort Film Corner. This was announced by Reyes herself in an interview with InterAksyon. “The film is actually a re-imagining of my earlier short film, ‘Unawa’. The basic story is by Mik, and we developed it together. He was also the main cinematographer of the film,” she revealed.
Starring Marisse Apostol, Ku Aquino, Angeli Bayani, Lia Torralba and Cheryll Hapalla, “Harvest” is about “a young girl who works in a fishing village in the province of the Philippines who tries to reconnect with her deranged mother in the city,” Reyes said.
“Her estranged father, however convinces her that she has gravely mistaken her mother’s identity,” she added. In terms of inspiration, Reyes confessed that she was always fond of coming-of-age, drama films, and female-driven films. Reyes is the daughter of business journalist Mary Ann Reyes who also co-produced “Harvest” with a modest budget of around P60,000. The whole film was shot in Bataan and Quezon City in a span of four days.
Currently in the U.S. with Red and character actor Abe Pagtama to promote “Rekorder” at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, Reyes and Red hope to be in France for the duration of the Cannes festival from May 14 to 25. Her film, however, is not officially in competition as the Short Film Corner is designed to be a “meeting place for short film producers and directors to present their films, make meetings reality and take decisive steps for their future careers.” (P. Sallan Interskyon)