CONDO: Groundbreaks 2008 INDIESINE Line-up
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No. It’s not another pre-selling spree for a new condominium tower. CONDO is the first film breaking out of the digital box from a new band of filmmakers.
“It was first a working title, the title CONDO that is,” executive producer and director Martin Cabrera shares. “But then as early debates among the producers went on as to what actually will the final title be, we all realized that CONDO nicely wraps everything up for the material in a thematic way. CONDO as a title lends both literal and figurative strokes to the film.
CONDO topbills Coco Martin. Yes, the same Coco Martin who shot to indie fame via Dante Mendoza’s critically acclaimed Masahista. Coco has become a staple to many important independent films to date. If anybody wants to trace his works released in 2007, just check out the following titles: Siquijor, Ataul For Rent, Nars, Tambolista,Batanes, Tirador. Coco Martin was in all of them, in all important roles.
CONDO is produced by a new group of filmmakers who are bound by a collective passion about the craft. Aloy Adlawan leads the crew as writer and producer of their first offering. Martin Cabrera was handed down the job of directing. Jeyow Evangelista brought his camera to the set as Cinematographer, Rona Lean Sales sat down as editor, Raymund Cruz coordinated the Production Management work.
On January 23, CONDO will have its first week-long theatrical run at the Indiesine theater in Robinson’s Galleria. Indiesine is a theater,managed by the Independent Filmmakers Cooperative (IFC) under the auspices of the Robinson’s Movie World management. CONDO kicks off Indiesine’s first quarter with an impressive indie line-up which includes Jade Castro’s 2007 Cinemalaya entry, Endo, Jun Lana’s Roxxxanne, and Ellen Ramos/Paolo Villaluna’s Selda.
CONDO is the story of Benjie (Coco Martin), a security guard assigned to his new post- a condominium. Left on his own with no family to lean on, and his girlfriend jilting him for another man, Benjie requests the building administration to let him stay in the guard’s quarters.
Benjie (Coco Martin) encounters a whole new universe of people in his new post. It is a condominium after all, a small community of neighbors and strangers all under one roof. But to Benjie, everyone’s just faces attached to door numbers, doors which are always closed and are rarely open. No one really cares about him. And Benjie only cares about his job even if it is the same tired routine. The building and the job have become the perfect refuge.
But when a mysterious intruder and a phone call coming from an empty unit begin taunting him, Benjie fears for the perfectly lonely world he’s built around himself. In the end, he discovers that the answer to the mystery lies not very far from his own shadow. Will he embrace it? Or will the mystery be lost on him forever?
