Cinemalaya Best Picture: JAY

‘Jay’ is an entry to the official CCP independent film festival termed as Cinemalaya this July 2008. Witnessing the brilliance of this film makes even more exciting to see all the full-length films lined up for competition.

The premise of the story simply translates the literal to a very captivating imagery of cinema verite (documentary) as it uses a kind of genre which is automated in reflexive type. It is like film within a film within a film – three levels of camera delusions and life-theatrics.

It tells the story of (present) Jay (played by Baron Geisler), a documentary producer and director of a newly-opened reality drama television show aired over Channel 8. He covers (past) Jay (played by RJ Payawal) who was stabbed to death in his rented apartment in Manila by an allegedly masseur (played by JC Santos) and with the 'supposedly' assistance of the tv program. Exposing the story might help discover the true gay-killer criminal in a realistic scenarios of television complexities and justice in the family. Incidentally, both Jays are gays characterized in the film and it tackles the complexities as well of this gender.

Baron Geisler disguises as the present Jay who translated the literal into something magnificent acting stint. He carries out even small scenes into bravura performances.

Some of the memorable scenes of Geisler include the scene with the past Jay’s mother (played by Flor Salanga) in the room re-enacting the seeing of the bird as a premonition of the death of his son Jay; another scene is when he asked the mother to re-enact destroyed footages of the first exposition – mother seeing for the first time the dead Jay in the embalming room for the dead; another is when he visited the museum inside the basement of the church with Jay’s former lover (played by Coco Martin) and him playing at the backdrop of this huge painted altar for 'getting married' couple.

These are some of the outstanding scenes of Geisler as he is brilliant in portraying the role of Jay. Martin, on the other hand, marks his natural acting in the film.

Successful production team is composed of director of photography (Carlo Mendoza), assistant director (Karla Pambid), production designer (Joy Puntawe), fabulous editors (Kats Serraon, Chuck Gutierrez, Francis Pasion), music (Gian Gianan), sound recording (Mark Locsin), Costume designers (Rowena Sanchez, FEU's Charmaine Idea), art director (Kariktan Pagarigan), script consultant (Armando Lao), design consultant (Leo Abaya) with Click Digital Post functioned as post production, line producer (Ronald Mangubat) and production managers (Hans Audric Estialbo, Andrew Legarda).

Though the film wants to touch a lot of universal issues, Pasion makes this directorial piece deliberately beautiful, well-crafted and intelligently told in an 'interesting way’ kind of film.

This film is currently showing in Cinemalaya 2008 at CCP.