Gina Pareño, best actress in Cannes

• denise
• May 22,2008 | 477 Readers
• In: Actors, Directors, Filmmakers, Movies

Dark Horse Nominee

The film “Serbis” directed by Brillante Mendoza was chosen by the organizers of the Cannes Film Festival to participate in this year’s competition had film star Gina Pareño at the helm. Remember her awards here and abroad for her role in indie film Kubrador? Will she be as victorious as last year?

The “Serbis” cast has already landed in Cannes, France to attend the prestigous international film festival. This includes Jaclyn Jose, Julio Diaz and Coco Martin among others. The film is about a family that owns a run down movie house and gives “special services” to its moviegoers.

It has been long since we had an entry in Cannes since Lino Brocka’s 1984 film “Bayan Ko, Kapit Sa Patalim”. “Serbis” is even competing against films made by Clint Eastwood and Steven Soderbergh. Ms. Gina at Jaclyn are rumored to be dark horses for the Best Actress award. Their film was screened before an aghast audience who was either too shocked and overwhelmed to react by the graphic sex, nudity, filth, and poverty shown.

In the said review; Jerome Vermelin of The Metro Cannes Daily wrote: “Mendoza is indeed brilliant! Serbis…is without a doubt the most torrid in competition; also one of the most surprising: a chronicle of 24 hours in the life of a porno theater in the city… ”
Maggie Lee in the Hollywood Report wrote that Brillante continues the neo-realism of Foster Child and Tirador, but shows marked improvement in the film which contains elements of soap opera minus the froth and lather.

Several in the exhibition audience also commented on the great acting restraint essayed by Jaclyn Jose who while harboring a secret life went about her mundane tasks mildly and passively, indeed a difficult role in any language. It is also fortuitous that Fortissimo Films acquired distribution of Serbis even before it got accepted in Cannes or that Swift Productions’ Didier Costet who distributed Dante’s Masahista and Tirador decided on Serbis as his first co-production venture.