Pedring A. Lopez’s action-thriller film, Nilalang (The Entity), has been doing international festival rounds since October and has received a lot of praises from movie critics for its perfect combination of sleek cinematography, editing, fight scenes, and amazing storyline.
The film is a BlackOps Studios Asia and Parallax Studios production and is the very first film they released internationally. According to Lopez, “…Nilalang was kind of like a trial, or an experiment, but it was one that really paid off”.
Nilalang was an entry for the 2015 Metro Manila Film Festival where it garnered five awards including Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Design, Best Editing, and Best Musical Score. It was also when controversy sparked because of the congressional probe on MMFF irregularities along with Erik Matti’s Honor Thy Father, but it didn’t stop the film from getting its much deserved attention internationally.
Nilalang had its international premiere in the Los Angeles Philippine International Film Festival held last October 7-9 where Lopez snagged the award for Best Director. A week after, it was screened in the Anti-Hero Genre Fest in Burbank, USA. The film also had the opportunity to be invited to one of the biggest genre festivals, Bram Stoker International Film Festival in Whitby, United Kingdom last October 27-30.
The film’s frenzy did not end there. November kicked off to a good start for Nilalang when it was shown in Festival Internacional de Cine Fantástico de Torremolinos, Spain last Oct. 27 – Nov. 1, and won two important awards: Best Visual Effects and Special Mention for Best Direction in an Action Film. Just last week, Nilalang hit off its New York premiere in the Urban Action Showcase & Expo held last November 12 and swept 5 of 7 major awards — Best Picture, Best Martial Arts Feature, Best Weapons Sequence, Best Sci-Fi/Supernatural Feature, and Best Actor Award for lead actor Cesar Montano.
With all the recognition, Lopez hopes that the film will start to open a lot of opportunities for local filmmakers to up their games, tackle untouched stories, and get appreciated internationally. Regarding future plans, Lopez said that “we can continue making regional films, ones which have both American, local, and casts from other countries involved so that Filipino genre cinema can get back on the map again”. Nilalang is truly a movie the country can be proud of with its pure Pinoy team’s talent reflected on it, and something that obviously sets the bar in the local film industry.
Synopsis: NBI special crimes division agent Tony (Cesar Montano) encounters an evil entity which is bent on killing and torturing beautiful women. People close to Tony are in danger including his partner Jane (Meg Imperial). The spirit, who has killed many people in Japan, is thought to be targeting women from a certain clan of samurai. In Manila, Miyuki (Maria Ozawa), a member of the clan, is later forced to help in the investigation regarding the murders to put a stop to the evil entity’s killing spree.
