ACF
Asian Cinema Fund
Script Development Fund
2014 Script Development Fund
LIST Whether the Weather is Fine (aka. A Wrong Season)
| Category | AFA Project |
|---|---|
| Project | Whether the Weather is Fine (aka. A Wrong Season) |
| Director | Carlo Francisco Manatad |
| Country | Philippines |
| Director's Profile |
Carlo Francisco Manatad is a filmmaker from Tacloban City, Philippines. He is a participant of the Asian Film Academy (AFA) in 2010, and attended the Berlinale Talent Campus in Germany in 2012. Currently, Manatad serves as faculty at the Digital Filmmaking Program, De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde and is one of the most prolific film editors in the Philippines: having worked with diverse filmmakers from both the independent and mainstream scene. Manatad promotes Waray Waray cinema most especially in his hometown where film remains underappreciated. Whether the Weather is Fine is his first feature film. |
- Synopsis
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November 2013. Typhoon Haiyan had claimed thousands of lives and had ravished houses and properties in the City of Tacloban, Leyte Province, Eastern Philippines.
The warden in Tacloban’s provincial city jail temporarily releases its prisoners in order for them to tend to their families in the midst of the disaster. The only condition, the released prisoners must voluntarily surrender on an imposed date, lest they be hunted down and killed. Among these prisoners is Miguel, who is almost up for conviction on a crime he did not commit.
Miguel wanders about the wrecked city in search for the two women in his life: his girlfriend, Andrea; and his mother, Anna. And as soon as he finds Anna and Andrea, he plans to escape the city with them, to claim his freedom and his life back.
And as the period of Miguel’s temporary release expires, his freedom and even his life are jeopardized. And with his life-in-hiding just revolving around the confines of the shopping building, Miguel feels more trapped than ever while inside his so-called home.
- Director's Note
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This recent terrible loss of my city melded with my past’s personal demons. I decided to make a film, taking place in the aftermath of the typhoon.
The film reveals like a dream?narrating the absurdity of my past and my hometown′s loss through the story of a son, his mother, and their community losing themselves: forgetting their humanity as they seek survival. Nobody remains innocent. As the city and the characters attempt to rebuild their lives, we see the ironic myth of that reinforces a system sustained by crime and immorality. They inescapably lose a sense of justice after having lost so much to nature and with no one to blame. Even the most human decisions result in incomprehensible consequences.
And even as the film ends with the mother and child staring at one another, having lost so much and with more to lose, hope pervades. Their eyes burst with a question?what more, what now?
- Festivals
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2021 Locarno Film Festival - Filmmakers of the Present Competition
2021 Singapore International Film Festival
2021 Hawaii International Film Festival
2021 Chicago International Film Festival
2022 Jeonju International Film Festival
2022 Melbourne International Film Festival
- Still Cut
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