Star Magic Digital Film, 'Anino', Introduces 160 Of Their Newest Workshop Graduates

STAR MAGIC’s Thess Gubi invited us to the premiere screening of their movie, “Anino”, and we got to interview its director Rahyan Carlos, who co-wrote it with Gina Tagasa. It’s the culminating activity for 160 acting newcomers who enrolled in their 5-month intensive training workshop and this also serves as their graduation. “There were originally 2,000 applicants,” he says. “After the initial screening, we got 300 then there’s another screening and we got 160 workshoppers. About 40 of them, puedeng magbida, the rest can do supporting roles.”

Rahyan originally started as a trainor with GMA-7 then he went into directing films for Regal, like the horror film “Pamahiin”. “In 2008, ABS got me to conduct workshops for ‘Florinda’ then Mr. M got me to train 30 newcomers that included the batch of Kim Chiu and Gerald Anderson.”

For “Anino”, he got some well known Star Magic talents to play supporting roles. The story is about a group of people who go to a retreat and Jake Cuenca plays one of the facilitators who tell the participants to face their fears. “Jake is very helpful. He told the newcomers that 8 years ago, he took my workshop in GMA so he’s glad to help them now.”

Dimples Romana plays a ghost, Yeng Constantino gets to sing a song with the participants on their way to the retreat house and Jodi Sta. Maria and Joem Bascon play actors who were shooting a scene that the participants get to watch.

The best thing about “Anino” is the excellent quality of its digital cinematography, including the CGI work in some scenes that required special effects. Because there are so many new actors given speaking parts, the narrative is, at best, episodic. Some of them appear as bit players in crowd scenes where they play zombies or activist farmers in a protest rally.

The age of the participants ranges from 13 to 62. The oldest workshopper is Elsa Kapunan, wife of Col. Red Kapunan and mother of Young JV. She has a dominant screen presence and one of those who registered well in her role as a haughty and snobbish lady who demands that she be given a room of her own as she doesn’t want to share it with the other girls.

We didn’t get the names of the other neophyte actors but those who made an impression with us include the young actress who plays Camille (who has serious issues with her dad), the guy who plays her brother (who sees images of their mom committing suicide), the girl teased as Bulldog for being ugly (she has one of the best roles, even has a torture scene, and works well as a self-deprecating comedienne), and the young man called Jopet who’s chided for having public display of affection inside the bus with his girlfriend (he’s a potential heartthrob.)