Romantic film set in war zones

Manila: A far-flung and war-torn Muslim-populated province in the southern Philippines has been chosen as the setting for a love story to emphasise love can endure any circumstances, a film director has said.

“Love is a universal feeling and it can be unearthed from the hearts of men and women who live in war-ravaged places like Tawi-Tawi,” said Cannes-film winning director Brillante Mendoza.

He shot his film called Thy Womb, in the island towns of Bongao, Sitangkai and Taganak, known as the untouched southern frontier, crafting them onscreen with rawness, enthralling sites, peace, and surprising serenity.

The beauty of these places more than the armed struggle and politics that have marred the whole of Mindanao for centuries, make them all the more compelling for the creation of a love story there, said Mendoza, 52, adding these places are away from bad news and closer to the hearts of loving people.

Come-back superstar and multi-awarded actress of the 70s, Nora Aunor and dramatic actor Bembol Roco portrayed a Bedjao (one of Mindanao’s ethnic groups) midwife and a peace-loving husband whose love for one another became, in the movie, an ultimate essay on the art of loving, and whose relationship went far beyond the meaning of tenderness and sacrifice, critics said.

Residents of Tawi-Tawi were also hired as supporting actors and actresses for the film that will be shown more abroad than in the Philippines.

The tender love story of the childless Badjao couple was meant to unconditionally symbolise love, making it a truer picture if not a stubborn anti-thesis of war-torn Mindanao where some five million Muslims have been fighting for decades for the establishment of an independent Islamic state in the south, said Mendoza.

“This cultural and dramatic film is more about people in love than politics [or how love survives politics, or war-torn places],” said Mendoza.

Local government officials sided with Mendoza. They also felt it was about time to come out and unravel to the public not a shell-shocked south but the pearl of a hidden Tawi-Tawi, its loving and peaceful people, and most of all, its beauty, provincial information officer Nash Tahang said.

“We hope to make local and foreign tourists see the tourism potential of Tawi-Tawi,” said Vice-Governor Ruby Sahali.

So far, residents and political activists have not reacted to the film director’s insistence about the truth of beauty and love. Some would say these ideals were meant to muffle the cries of war among freedom-seeking Filipino Muslims in Mindanao.

It is the home of two major Muslim separatist groups, one of which forged a political settlement with the Philippine government in 1996; the other group has been holding peace talks with the government since 1997.

It is also the base of the Al Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf Group, blamed for high profile kidnap-for-ransom, beheadings, bombings and other terror activities in the south.

Most of Mendoza’s films are shown at film festivals abroad and in special theatres outside of the Philippines.

He started making films in 2005 and has been identified as an independent film-maker.

He won best director for a film Kinatay (which means “butchered” in Tagalog) at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival in 2009. Lola won best film at the 6th Dubai International Film Festival in 2011. Captive, based on the experience of an American missionary who was held captive by the Abu Sayyaf Group in the south in 1991) competed at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in February.