Aninag (Light's Play)

About the Film

35mm, dark fantasy/children, 15 mins., 2004

Isabel journeys to a dream world with her new mystical friends in an attempt to overcome her isolation due to her blindness.

Isabel, a blind girl who journeys to a dream world formed through her emotions, shortly plays with her new mystical friends “Saya” (Happiness) and “Pag-asa” (Hope). Soon, she succumbs to her negative thoughts while she is left alone in the forest where she attracts entities sensitive to her fear.

Trailer

Film

Aninag (Light's Play) from Rianne Hill Soriano on Vimeo.

Production Team

Isabel		Patricia de Silva
Mother		Karla Pambid
Father		Joel Torre
Pag-asa		David Trinidad
Saya		Rency Van Dorpe
Fairy dancer		Charisse Mara Luluquisin
Shadowman		Iroy Abesamis

Director/Writer/Producer		Rianne Hill Soriano
Director of Photography		Wowie Hao
Production Designers		Chrisel Galeno
		Joy Puntawe
Assistant Directors		Joy Puntawe
		French Lacuesta
Production Managers		Alda David
		Mayleen Enorme-Menez
Choreographer		Iroy Abesamis
Storyboard Artists		AG Sano
		Philip Arvin Jarilla
Original Storybook for the Film		Rianne Hill Soriano
Storybook Artists		Al Rio
		OJ Desuasido

Production Notes

“Aninag” (“Light’s Play”), a film grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), is Rianne's second film. Most of the film stocks for the project came from Kodak Philippines through the filmmaker’s prize as Kodak Film Awardee 2003 of the University of the Philippines Film Institute (UPFI) with her thesis film “Karsel” (Prison). It also benefited from her being a recipient of the Kodak Emerging Filmmaker's Grant.

This 35mm film was blessed with a number of supportive institutions and artists willing to help independent film productions. These include the production houses Filmex that provided a number of short ends (partly used film stocks from advertising projects) and lent equipment and studio location and Production Village that provided a number of short ends, as well as the Department of Environment and National Resources (DENR), the City Hall of Antipolo, and the Municipal Hall of Rodriguez that provided support in the shooting of the bulk of the film's scenes (dream sequence) at the historical site of the Wawa Gorge in San Rafael, Rodriguez (formerly Montalban), Rizal, Philippines — where the legend of Bernardo Carpio’s “Dalawang Nag-uumpugang Bato” (The Two Clashing Rocks) originated.

The film's dream sequence was inspired by the children’s storybook “Ang Ika-Sampung Taong Kaarawan ni Prinsesa Mayumi” (Princess Mayumi’s 10th Birthday), which the filmmaker originally wrote for the film.

The child actors were from the Advocacy Program of Museo Pambata (a Filipino children's museum in Manila). The production team was proud of these three kids who did a great job as first-time film actors.