"Happyland," an indie film of Jim Libiran

Happyland
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

Reality is a better storyteller.

Happyland stands firmly on a simple and straight-forward narrative structure -- a coming-of-age story based on the experiences of several generations of young football players from the slums of Tondo, Manila.

The very location of the characters -- geographical and social -- and their thrust towards a difficult goal excites powerful and intrinsic conflicts, expanding dramatic possibilities on many levels.

These dramatic conflicts, tucked into the visual texture of Tondo's landscape and the suspenseful beat of football matches gives out a mix that is both contrapuntal and complex to the senses.

The Barcelona scenes -- (flashbacks with reference to Filipino striker Paulino Alcantara of FC Barcelona) add historical depth to the Tondo story -- connecting the present to a glorious past.

Less is more. This story should be allowed to unfold on its own, without much interference from the filmmaker. Here, the real auteur is verismo, realism.

Depicting actual life without embellishment and without artifice, Happyland will be shot on location, with little or no professional actors, using actual residents as extras (and as part of the production crew itself).

The main characters are real football players from Tondo.

The director wishes to employ the best digital equipment available for greater cinematic quality plus flexibility in the film's final format. High-speed camera will be used in the game scenes. Some action sequences will be shot in overcrank. Natural light will highlight a rich textured background of modern urban blight. Main color identification for the home team sequences will use the hue of red, yellow and orange. Dream sequences and flashbacks (Barcelona scenes) will be rendered in deep-contrast monochrome.

The eloquent depiction of the harsher aspects of everyday life may still be described as realism (or neo-realism). But this time, the director hopes to achieve a "realism of hope and inspiration."

JIM LIBIRAN
writer/director, Happyland
31 May 2009
Manila