Official Selection - Competition 2019 / Oda sa wala / Philippines 2018
It seems as if nothing can upset Sonya’s routine. No-one cares about the ageing funeral shop owner anymore, except when she provides discounts on flowers and coffins. One day a body belonging apparently to no-one finds its way to her shop, and Sonya develops a highly unusual relationship with it. An inscrutable, tender and bitterly comic film about the desire for companionship.
Middle-aged Sonya leads an uneventful life. She gets up, goes to work, takes care of her father – who is foundering in his own little world – and then goes to bed. Her mundane existence is no longer disrupted even by mourners who occasionally turn up at the failing funeral shop Sonya is trying to keep afloat, albeit with ever waning enthusiasm. And then something happens to ripple the surface. A body appears on the doorstep one day and there’s no-one to claim it. The dead woman’s solitude reminds Sonya of the loneliness she herself is struggling with, and a friendship emerges which goes beyond unusual. Ode to Nothing is a meticulously composed, inscrutably tender film about the desire for companionship and about myths that don’t deserve to be exposed.
Anna Kořínek
92 min / Color, DCP
International premiere
Director Dwein Baltazar
/ Screenplay Dwein Baltazar
/ Dir. of Photography Neil Daza
/ Music Richard Gonzales
/ Editor Dwein Baltazar
/ Art Director Marxie Maolen Fadul
/ Producer Carlo Katigbak, Olivia M. Lamasan, Bianca Balbuena, Iana Celest Bernardez, Kriz Gazmen, Marizel Samson-Martinez, Eduardo Lejano Jr., Manet Dayrit
/ Production Black Sheep, Epicmedia Productions Inc, Quezon City Film Development Commission
/ Cast Marietta Subong, Joonee Gamboa
/ Contact Epicmedia Productions, Inc.
www: https://www.epicmedia.ph/oda-sa-wala
Dwein Baltazar. Filmography: Mamay Umeng (2012), Gusto Kita with All My Hypothalamus (2018), Ode to Nothing (Oda sa wala, 2019)
Epicmedia Productions, Inc.
Block 20 Lot 4, Camella Homes, Mercedes Ave, 1600, Pasig City, Metro Manila
Philippines
Phone: +63 917 620 8253
E-mail: [email protected]
Bianca Balbuena
Producer
Kriz Anthony Gazmen
Producer
Dwein Baltazar
Film Director
Olivia Lamasan
Producer
Jo Andrew Torlao
Film Institution Rep.
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