Mario Cornejo’s Apocalypse Child won the Fasken Martineau Best Feature Film award and received $4,000 cash prize of the 2016 Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival on November 13.
Reel Asian is a nonprofit charitable cultural organization advocating Asian representation in media and the arts founded in 1997.
Apocalypse Child had previously won Best Picture, Best Director, and Technical Excellence in Editing at the Quezon City Film Festival and was part of the official selection of the Udine Far East Film Festival 2016 and the New York Asian Film Festival 2016.
Apocalypse Child was directed by Mario Cornejo and co-written by Cornejo and Monster Jimenez. It stars Sid Lucero as Ford, Ana Abad-Santos as Chona, RK Bagatsing as Rich, Annicka Dolonius as Fiona, Gwen Zamora as Serena, and Archie Alemania as Jordan. Fiona falls for the Music was by Armi Millare, cinematography by Ike Avellana, film editing by Lawrence Ang, production design by Christina Dy, sound design by Corinne De San Jose , visual effects by Keith Deligero, color grading by Louise Nakpil, and marketing and distribution by Carlos Tesoro. It was produced by Arkeofilms. The film was shot on location in Baler.
In the film, Fiona (Annicka Dolonius ) narrates how, according to local lore, the beachside town’s surfing culture began when Francis Ford Coppola shot his iconic movie Apocalypse Now in 1979 and how he left behind a surfboard and his love-child, the aptly named Ford (Sid Lucero), which he fathered with local lass Chona (Ana Abad-Santos). Fiona falls for the surfer dude Ford. Rich (RK Bagatsing), the aptly-named young new dynastic mayor whose father adopted Ford as a child introduces his fiancée Serena (Gwen Zamora) who begins to supplant Fiona. For abuses and transgressions in the past, Rich has come to his hometown for his own private apocalypse.
Reel Asia’s website notes, “Director Mario Cornejo’s laid- back, simplistic approach to storytelling takes the viewer on a compelling journey of escape into the surf, sun, and sprawling beaches—and one can’t help but want to dive in.”
