(Eagle News) — Here’s another win for the Iglesia Ni Cristo’s film entry, “Walang Take Two.”
This time, it won the grand prize in the online-based “Fanboy Film Festival,” getting a total of 9,500 votes as the best feature film. It was also the only film nominee that came from the Philippines. The other competing independent films came from the US, Europe and Asia.
The film that got the second highest number of votes was a US film, “Balloon Girl,” which got 2,800 votes, or less than a third of the total number of votes that “Walang Take Two” had.
With the win, “Walang Take Two” gets the grand prize of $10,000 from this online film festival that brings directly to online fans and viewers various independent films from all over the world.
This most recent win for the Filipino independent movie produced by the Iglesia Ni Cristo’s INCinema productions adds to the list of film awards that it had received from prestigious film festivals, including “best film” and “best cinematography in a foreign language film” awards from the 2016 Madrid International Film Festival.
It had also won two major awards from the World Film Awards in Jakarta –the “Platinum World Award” for film director Carlo Cuevas and the “World Newcomer Filmmaker of the year”
Cuevas also bagged the London International Film Festival Award for best director in a foreign film last February.
Those behind this independent film thanked God for this string of victories for “Walang Take Two” (No Second Take).
The film’s cast and crew were mostly new in the film industry, having had no filmmaking experience before.
“We thank God for these wonderful blessings. This is all His Work. We also thank the INC Church Administration led by Executive Minister Brother Eduardo V. Manalo for guiding us and allowing us to be part of this film,” said various members of the film’s cast and crew.
The cast of the movie are all first-time actors and actresses whose acting skills were honed only through their participation in previous INCinema short film productions. The INCinema films are among the projects of the Iglesia Ni Cristo Church Administration to hone cinematic talents of INC members — not only in the Philippines but in other countries as well — who are interested in film-making.
The film was written and directed by Cuevas who had previously directed TV documentary shows. This was his first time, however, to direct a full-length film.
The film revolves around the ambitious but poor young Filipino film-maker “Hapi” who wants to make it big as a first-time “indie” director and film maker. The twists in his life and those around him, punctuated with hilarious comedic situations and dramatic turn of events, are something which all audiences would appreciate.
The line “Walang Take Two” or “there are no second takes” is what Hapi always hears from his father Mang Julian, a retired videographer.
In his quest to find ways to produce his “indie film,” he painfully learns that he has to be careful in his decisions because there are choices one might make in life that can never be taken back –proving the wisdom behind his father’s usual quip that sometimes there are no second takes.
The film was released in Philippine cinemas in September 2015.
It currently has a spin-off situational comedy series being shown on Net 25, every Saturday at 4 to 5 p.m., with replays on Sundays at 9 p.m.