Good News

Here's where we're at right now, a year and a half after principal photography ended:

Off World had it's North American premiere as opening night film at the 10th Reel World Film Festival in Toronto, Canada. Director Mateo Guez was there to represent, of course. (He sent me a pic, but my email account was hacked!)

The film was well received and won the Outstanding Candian Feature at the festival. Congratulations to Mateo Guez and Byron Wong (Producer/Composer)! We are very proud of you guys for battling it out there.

Off World will screen at the 20th In and Out Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in Toronto at the end of May. In June, the film will be at the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, "the longest running and widely recognized LGBT film exhibition event in the world."

Finally, the film was selected to be part of the TeleFilm Perspective Canada programme in Cannes 2010.

Amazing!

(More details can be viewed www.theoffworld.com.)

The children are also doing well. Julia Nebrija, our location manager, reports that beside the SMPC office in Paradise Heights in Tondo, the kids have started an urban garden and their very own mini co-op. They are growing their own vegetables and learning about saving money.

Remember Natalie? When we were shooting, she was a toddler. Here she is at the Children's Museum in Manila on April 22nd at the Earth Day celebration. Aside from tree planting and t-shirt printing, they were asked to write poems about nature.

Natalie made a drawing since she wasn't sure about the poem--but most of the other kids wrote about taking care of the environment and not throwing trash everywhere. Certainly that's good news.

Love from Manila.