One best reason of my getting back to Manila after my participation in the Japan-East Asia Future Leader Program, that took place in Japan in June, was the EIGA SAI held at Shang Cineplex, EDSA Shangri-la Plaza, Ortigas in July 2008. It's a year now but I felt the need to express my feelings towards it. It was my first to be with one of the events of the Philippines-Japan Friendship Month of the JAPAN FOUNDATION. I, indeed, was so lucky to be very specially-counted in. whew!
Spending half day inside the theatre room of SHANG for four days to watch the Japanese Films was very much spelled as FUN! It seemed I was brought back to JAPAN!
How I wished I tagged my friends and students with me to the cinema! It could have been a wondrous experience for people who needed to be reawakened.
As Ms. Pauline Kael wrote:
"Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again."
Studying movies for their mystical message empowers us. We gain insight and greater self-awareness.
So much of life today is centered on problems, recovery, and painful struggles of trying to meet the unrelenting demands of the 21st century living.
Movies elevate our sights, enlarge imaginations. Film, like pottery, is one of our heart's most subtle agents. It reminds us of what we know, helps us stretch and change, provides us with sensory catalyst for creative, cutting-edge change.
I think we all need the uplift provided by films that inspire, encourage, affirm, and celebrate the human spirit.
Movies mirror us and invite us to go beyond the obvious. Their themes can powerfully equip us to see ourselves as we are at our worst, and at our best, or to help us invent new scripts about who we hope to be.
Everything placed in our path can help us...
Thank you, JAPAN FOUNDATION, for the grace given for our edification!
Doumo Arigatou Gozaimasu!
