‘Puso’ becomes heart of Cebuano short film

As part of its Heritage Awareness Campaign, Palm Grass, Cebu’s only heritage hotel, offers a series of firsts to the public in commemoration of the 120th year of the Cebu revolution against Spain.

On Sunday, Cebuanos mark the 120th anniversary of the second phase of the 1898 Cebu Revolution, when Cebu Katipunan leader Heneral Luis Flores regrouped the Cebu Katipuneros after a temporary setback following Leon Kilat’s murder on April 8, 1898.

From 6 to 9 p.m. at Hawanan Tres de Abril, Palm Grass will hold a special screening of the short fiction film, “Kinasing,” by video creator Prospero Laput of Hong Kong-based Asia-Pacific Focus Features, in cooperation with Palm Grass Hotel and some Cebu students.

This will be the first time in Cebu that a short film will tackle the modern-day relevance of the 1898 Cebu revolution, where a fictional descendant of Heneral Luis Flores meets a lovely puso-maker (hanging rice-maker) from Pasil.

Puso, specifically, the kinasing, is the central object in this short film and is used to highlight its historical context and progression.

In this film, the puso-makers are honored in a song based from a poem, that tells about their pains, struggles, dreams and journey toward a better society. Young Cebuano artists composed, arranged and interpreted the song.

In addition, students from two state universities: Cebu Normal University and University of the Philippines (UP) -Cebu, are a huge part of this film production as they are involved from the writing of the script to the casting, as well as becoming members of the crew of the short film.

“It’s a real challenge to organize a short film production with very fresh talents who either just graduated from school or are still in school. But somehow, community-driven projects like this are getting to be a familiar terrain in my marketing and communications content creation portfolio. And Palm Grass did an excellent job in organizing the kids into a formidable indie film crew,” said Laput.

Last March, Palm Grass Hotel, with UP-Cebu alumnus Prospero Laput, led workshops on Motion Graphics and Video Creation. It was participated in by selected UP-Cebu and University of San Carlos students. The workshops were able to produce two videos on the 1898 Cebu Revolutio.

Complimentary cocktails will follow after the “Kinasing” film screening.