Edward (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Thop Nazareno
	Actors: Louise Abuel, Ella Cruz, Dido de la Paz
	Country: RP
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 01.07.2020, FEFF2020, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: A public hospital serves as a witness to a young boy's rite of passage when he is stuck to take care of his ailing father.
Review: This is the kind of movie I would never have seen if it was not for the Far East Film Festival, and what I felt while watching it is strongly attached to my long history with the Festival. Edward is a simple facts-of-life movie which shows you that humans are the same all around the planet: they love, suffer, have to deal with family and friends, go through adolescence... I wrote the same thing about another Filipino movie shown at the FEFF back in 2013: Shift, and I thank deeply the cinema of that country for bringing us such jewels. It is all the more striking when the adventures of the young Edward take place in the foreign setting of a public hospital in the Philippines. Those are not the same health standards as in richer countries (or for richer people): over-crowded rooms, dirtiness, lack of hygiene, relatives sleeping under the beds of the sick... This setting makes the movie look "exotic" to me while it is the daily life for people living there. And in the midst of that, a boy torn between a sick father he barely knows, survival one day at a time (spending money on chips or phone credits?), a bad-influence friend and a potential love interest. I love that the movie packs its story into a sufficient 82 minutes, and that the third act takes you somewhere tragic and unexpected, and doesn't leave you with the same feelings as you have carried since the beginning. A lesson in screenplay writing. The best movie seen at the Online Far East Film Festival 2020.
Rating: 8 /10