Sundalong Kanin bagged the Best Feature Film Global at the recently concluded International Film Festival Manhattan 5th Year (IFFM).
The Film Screenings were held from Oct.23 to 25 at the Producers Club in New York.
Directed by Janice O’Hara and written by Jerry O’Hara, Sundalong Kanin is set in the 1940s during the Japanese occupation. It is about four young boys determined to become soldiers and fight for their country. How they survive the realities of war that threatened to destroy their families and their friendship despite their innocence, the pain and the hardships they had to go through is one of, if not the best, beautifully executed films depicting this era in the local film industry.
Sheila Bugia- Ambray of Front Media Entertainment produced the film.
Sundalong Kanin is Janice O’Hara’s directorial debut and entry to the 2014 Cinemalaya Film Festival under the New Breed Category. It won the Audience’s Choice Award in that festival. Her first Cinemalaya experience was Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio, directed by Mario O’Hara based on her screenplay.
Sundalong Kanin also garnered the Inding-Indie Gawad Parangal Asian Best Indie Movie Excellence Award 2015 by the founder of Inding-Indie Film Festival multi-awarded director Ron Sapinoso, for t wholesome and uniqueness in acting and story flow. Also set to receive an Inding-Indie Gawad Parangal Most Promising Actor of Indie Films are the cast members, who played the four young boys, Nathaniel Brit, Isaac Cain Aguirre, Elijah Canlas and Akira Morishita.
IFFM is committed in showcasing entertaining and diverse films in all genres and scope to equal the diversity of New York. It is also committed in exploring all opportunities to promote the artists, his work, his vision, and his cause if he has any, during the showing of the films and the events during the festival. The other featured films were Asintado directed by Louie Ignacio and Lihis by Joel Lamangan.
IFFM 2015 featured diversified films from the USA, Israel, Belarus, Singapore, Australia and a special spotlight of the Philippines in celebration of the October Filipino History Month in the USA. This year’s Official Media Sponsor of the festival is GMA Pinoy TV, GMA Life TV and GMA News TV International.