November 20, 2005, for the 2nd Neo-Angono Public Art Festival, we held a free outdoor screening of indie films (shorts by Mes de Guzman, Tessa de Guzman, and Lloyd Blancaflor; full-lengths by Ron Bryant and Sig Barros-Sanchez) at the parking lot of Metrobank Angono. Billed as “Sine-silip sa Sinagtala: Revisiting Star Theater,” it was a tribute of sorts to the theater that used to stand where Metrobank Angono now is. A run-down, third-class theater with a double-feature program (and seats full of “surot,” bedbugs?), Star was where I (and many of my contemporaries in Angono) watched movies with friends. It was where I saw “Superman II,” “Ghostbusters,” “Never Say Never,” “For Your Eyes Only,” and of course, the unforgettable (for me) “Alapaap” by Tata Esteban.
Below is a poem by Tessa de Guzman on her “Angono experience.”
best regards,
ian
— Tessa de Guzman wrote:
> Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:24:17 -0800 (PST)
> From: Tessa de Guzman
> Subject: angono
> To: Ian Lomongo
> Angono
> para sa Neo-Angono Artists Collective, sa pamilyang Vitor, at sa atin
>
> Angono,
> kinupkop mo kami- / you adopted us-
> wanderers, wayward children of the arts,
> mga anak ni Brocka. / Brocka’s children.
> Kala namin uulan / We thought it was going to rain
> but you held a painting up
> so we would not get wet.
> It was a painting
> of starry skies
> a clear, cloudless night
> stretched between two bamboo poles
> where we watched our lives unfold
> at 24 frames per second:
> Ian jumped off a building
> while Santi played piano like a madman-
> Dra. Shane couldn’t do a damn thing about either.
> In the guise of another
> I murdered my abusive husband
> and flirted with Chris Stein.
> Dino sang the slow old songs of our parents
> and when JP started a joke,
> none of us could stop laughing.
> Later on Diane confessed
> that dreams are her reality
> as Aeon wondered what she was going to do now
> with all this time.
> Eventually, Mike begged Roxanne to turn off her red light,
> and though he don’t get a kick out of champagne,
> Sledge got a kick out of an evening
> that was totally Pinoy
> and purely Mhajica.
>
> It was hard to leave you, Angono.
> On our way back into the city
> nakaramdam kaming lahat / we all felt
> ng kakaibang pangungulila. / a peculiar sense of abandonment.
> We couldn’t stop the roads from getting wider
> or the buildings from growing bigger-
> just like all kids can’t be stopped
> from getting older
> from leaving home
> from travelling by narrow roads
> into the unknown.
> But what we can promise you
> is that we will travel light
> bringing only
> the best of what we left behind
> with us
> everywhere we go.
>
> Thank you.