Fil-Am animator Bobby Pontillas talks of his new TV project, 'Sun Chaser,' and winning at Annecy Film Festival
And for Fil-Am Bobby Pontillas, it was going back to his roots, doing what he loves to do, and winning at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in Annecy, France, considered the Oscars of Animation.
His TV animation project, "Sun Chaser," which he created with Bernard Badion, together with Toon City and Playlab animation studio, won the Annecy Festival MIFA Animation du Monde Prize (Animation of the World – All Categories).
The boyish-looking Pontillas said in an email interview, "Sun Chaser was selected for the MIFA Pitches at Annecy in the TV Series category and won the Animation du Monde prize, which supports original stories from underrepresented regions in animation. Just being invited felt like a huge win, as it gave us the chance to share our story on one of the world's biggest animation stages."
The "Animation du Monde" Prize at the Annecy Festival's MIFA Pitches is dedicated to spotlighting animation projects from regions where the industry is still emerging—those often under-funded, under-resourced, or just getting started. It aims to open doors for international creativity across geographical, cultural, and technical diversity.
Pontillas revealed that his inspiration for his Sun Chaser "came from a personal place of wanting to tell a story rooted in Filipino mythology and identity, through the eyes of a young Filipino American trying to reconnect with his roots."
Originally from Bremerton, Washington, and then Glendale, California, Pontillas is now back in the Philippines.
Asked what made him make the big move, the former animator at Disney, Blue Sky, ArenaNet and Taiko Studios, said, "I wanted to be closer to the culture I was drawing inspiration from, and I wanted to work with Filipino artists to bring a very Filipino story to life. It felt very important to help bridge the gap between local creatives and the global animation industry."
Pontillas, who worked in such blockbuster projects as "Frozen," "Zootopia," "Moana" and "Rio," was also a former Oscar nominee for the short film, "One Small Step."
The only child of a single mother, Corazon Pontillas from Nabua, Camarines Sur, Pontillas shared that his greatest inspiration in being an animator was his mother. "All of us have been fortunate enough to have strong support systems that encouraged us to be artists. For myself, my mother was my biggest cheerleader when I was trying to become an animator. She sacrificed so much for me, and I wanted to pay tribute to that love."
Asked how he would compare the animation industry in the Philippines to that of Los Angeles, Pontillas said, "The Philippine animation industry has long been known for its incredible service work, often helping bring to life stories from studios in LA. And while we know that service work will always be the backbone of the industry here, we're also working to expand our narrative. It's time the world sees what Filipino artists can create when we tell our own stories, in our voice."
He explained why "Sun Chaser" is special to him and significant for representation. "First and foremost, I want Filipino kids to see that they can be the heroes of their own stories.
"But beyond that, I hope it resonates with anyone in the diaspora, across cultures, who's searching for a deeper connection to their roots. There's so much beauty in our heritage, and this is my way of honoring that while inviting others to do the same."
As to his next project, he said, "We're actively looking for the right partners to help bring Sun Chaser to life. At the same time, I'm committed to working closely with young Filipino artists, helping them find their voice and supporting them as they tell original stories rooted in their own lived experiences. Seeing their talent and heart gives me so much hope for the future of our industry here!"
He admitted there was no more time to celebrate the win. He confessed, "Honestly, I celebrated the win by getting back to work haha! But also taking quiet moments of gratitude. Wins like this don't happen alone, and I'm incredibly thankful to my team and everyone who's believed in the project so far.
"That said, we know there's still a long road ahead, not just to make Sun Chaser a reality, but to help inspire our industry here in the Philippines to keep investing in original content. This is just the beginning!"
—MGP, GMA Integrated News
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GMA Network
14 hours ago
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'Into the Woods' creators on the Easter eggs making the musical a Filipino production through and through
The much awaited Theater Group Asia (TGA) production of "Into the Woods" opened last week with an all-star Filipino cast led by Lea Salonga. But as soon as curtains went up, it became evident there is more Filipino culture than the cast. Large capiz windows dominate the stage, with the floor covered by what looks like Spanish tiles. A huge chandelier hangs amid scattered tree trunks and immediately the audience will know this is an unabashedly Filipino production of the famous American musical about various fairytale characters. According to TGA's artistic and creative director Clint Ramos, they really wanted to be overt about it. "We still wanted to honor the intentions of the original creators but we wanted to find a way to make it ours, in a way that feels organic." In making "Into the Woods," TGA decided to lean in and include the many layers of Philippine history. The pre-colonial in the weaves featured in the costumes — Also, check out the pintados tattoos on The Wolf — the colonial in the silhouette of the boot, and perhaps the modern post-colonial in the Filipino diaspora represented by many of the actors. Creators Clint and director Chari Arespacochaga tell GMA News Online more about their creative decisions and their inspiration that led to a distinctly Filipino rendition of "Into the Woods." Below is our interview edited for length and clarity. TGA's Overall Artistic and Creative Director Clint Ramos and Director Chari Arespacochaga Courtesy: TGA Could you tell us more about the decision to use capiz windows and the floor tiles on the stage? Were those nods to our culture? if yes, was it difficult to do with "Into the Woods"? Clint: We never really thought to translate or adapt it. We never changed a single word in the musical, nor did we change anything in the music. But to give you a little bit of background, when the late Bobby Garcia and I were talking about starting TGA here in the Philippines, we really wanted to consider the Filipino condition. We didn't want to be heavy handed about it. For "Into the Woods," we still to honor the intentions of the original creators but we wanted to find a way to make it ours in a way that feels organic. So we kept thinking: How would you do it in Manila? How would you — what would we need to do to make this happen? Clearly we're doing it with an all Filipino cast and we wanted to engage Filipinos in the broader diaspora, but we wanted to build it here in Manila. For "Into the Woods," the mandate was: Without any rules, how we can um consider who we are, our history as a people? This musical is about fairy tales, and we want to lean into this idea of us as a people being storytellers. That's how it all kind of began. Those capiz windows are an interesting choice. Clearly you can see the colonial influence already. And that was a big thing for us. The scale of the capiz windows is big because we wanted to dwarf the actors — like it's bigger than them. But more than anything, we didn't want it to be naturalistic. We didn't want it to be like, 'here's the forest, and now here's the castle.' We didn't want it to be that way. We wanted to create a box, an envelope for the storytelling. It wasn't about convincing audiences that we're going to transport you into the forest. We we wanted to consider all of the layers of of Filipinos and that's also what we inspired our designers to do. To break the rules. There are no rules. You're ready Filipino. So what we wanted to do was create our unique Filipino facade, an envelope for the storytelling. So you have this box and then you put trees in it, and you have the orchestra up there and you're conscious of the thing being made, you know? The storytelling being made. The way Chari [Arespacochaga] staged the whole thing is very presentational. The musical is very presentational. You have characters entering, telling you who they are, telling you about like what's about to happen. There's a narrator. It's about storytelling. "Into the Woods" does feel very self-aware. We thought there were inside jokes in there. It is very self-conscious. It's like, the work of where you have to create a distance between who the audience is and these characters, and that kind of technique maximizes the audiences' identification with those characters. And because we're able to distance ourselves at first, it is able to honor the fairytale roots of the stories. That is a princess, or that is a prince, that is a wolf. But once [they start] spouting those lyrics, it's like, 'she literally my mother.' Or 'that is me.' And then the story flips on itself. You're also made to think more about yourself. Like, 'Would I have done what the Steward did?' And this is the funny thing. It's like going back to this idea of Filipino-ness. We really encourage the actors, because they had the same question: How do we present this in a Filipino context? And Chari and I were really encouraging them to just not even think about it. Was that difficult to do? Chari: It wasn't. A lot of the work was freeing them to say, 'Why do you think this mom is doing that?' To call from personal things. What is your experience of the first moment you had desires that a Catholic school told you was bad or what whatever, right? And so a lot of the process was freeing that thought and encouraging them to really be empowered to put those into their choices. Oh so that's why on opening night, Clint quoted Sodeheim in his opening message! About how being you makes it being true. That's literally what we were saying. There is no right or wrong way to do Filipino. As as Sodeheim had beautifully stated in one of his musicals,'everything you do, let it come from you and it be new.' But how about with the costumes and the textiles. Even the puppetry? Our costume designer [Raven Ong] really wanted to look at sort of the the materiality of Filipino culture, right? And not create our own rules in this fairy tale. There's there's some creatures from the Visayan myths that resemble dogs so that would the dog wolf. So this is from Visayas, so maybe we also infuse a little bit of the pintados in the design. When our costume designer said 'I wanna use habi,' I said, 'go for it.' It's very exciting, in the princes' costumes, there's all of that gold trim. And its ingenious and almost scholarly way to approach it. And the puppetry, we wanted to use puppets but wanted it Filipino, so Teatro Mulat of National Artist Amelia Bonifacio was a no brainer. The technique and the symbols that they used are drawn from Filipino culture. The birds are inspired by local birds. They created shadow puppets so the Filipino vines that go up balete trees, the beanstalk. The boot of the female giant! And the puppeteer is Amihan, the daughter of Amelia, our national artist. She was animating the cow, and was a big part of the production. Were there things that left you struggling, or left you both thinking, what would Bobby do? Clint: In my conversations with Bobby, one of the the first questions we asked each other was like, okay, so who are the giants in the sky, who seem to be omnipotent but also trampling on our land? all of this stuff. So we had really wanted to be intentional about that. We ran across this popular American caricature from the turn of the century — Uncle Sam's boot. So what did we do to make a nod to that, a little wink — not even a wink or a nod, but like can we be overt about that? If we are saying the box alludes to the Spanish, and we have all of this like pre-colonial motifs, you know. Maybe then we do this big thing, the physical representation of that alludes to a colonizing force or a big force like that, it strength on a on a people and creates kind of like havoc, right? And the people actually turning on themselves to blame each other for the things that go wrong. Like people say, yeah, the giant is the greed, you know, why what's happening to these characters is because of Jack, right? Like he went up there to get, you know, to get all of these riches. But where do those riches come from? It's very overt, but we wanted to be cheeky and funny. This is part of this is part of us. We think of being Filipino needs to be indigenous. Like that's not Filipino enough because that's not indigenous enough. But there are layers to us. So we wanted to pose that question to the ounce and whether they like it or not is really up to them. Is that something that you wish the audiences would you know it is it is it like a takeaway that you wish audiences would would have leaving the theater Chari: When we first started talking about this, I have not been home in, what, 12 years since I left to pursue directing in the United States, and I was really just looking back to that period. I had never felt more Filipino than when I had finally left and had to navigate up building a career in another country. So if what is taken away is a discourse about what it means for you to be Filipino today, great. If what you take away is a restored belief in our innate need for community, also, great. But also like come come and have fun at the show, coming and enjoy the show and allow for it to make you think about new ways of living today. It's a fairy tale after all. Clint: For me if they come if people come out of this show having a discourse, not only about and the brilliance of this musical, but what it means to consider the Filipino condition, then we've already done our job. Chari: But ultimately, what was really important to us was the question of what happens if a community is broken apart by big oppressive forces? The way through is for the community to come back together. Yes, exactly. It may not resemble the old community that was torn apart but it's almost like the only way out of hell is through it. So we acknowledge the damage and the rebuilding. Like if there's anything more Filipino with that resiliency, I mean, there's a reason why our you know our original architecture was really meant to be temporary. Clint: Ricky Lee was there on opening night, and he had seen the original Broadway production which was very ornate. We had a conversation after the show and he said, 'it seemed like you all pared it down and made this both presentational, with a real focus on the relationships. The way these characters reacted to each other and to the things that were happening around them. And he said how that was so incredibly Filipino. And it was really amazing to hear that from Ricky because in many ways, it was a reflection of what we were trying to do. — GMA Integrated News
GMA Network
19 hours ago
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Kim delos Santos opens up about breakup with ex-fiancé: 'Nawalan ng love'
Kim delos Santos has opened up about her past 11-year relationship with her ex-fiancé and the reason behind their separation. On Monday's episode of 'Fast Talk With Boy Abunda,' the nurse and former actress said that she had a long-term relationship after her split with her ex-husband and "T.G.I.S." co-star Dino Gueverra. 'I had an 11-year relationship. Fiance ko na po. We were supposed to get married, so between Dino and my fiance, it was 18 years. So two guys,' said Kim, who has been single for eight years now. 'Tapos 'non, hindi na ako nag-boyfriend noong nag-break kami ng fiancé ko. Nag-self healing na lang ako." According to Kim, her ex-fiance, also a Filipino based in the United States, became her 'comfort person.' 'Naging comfort ko siya. Parang takot ako sobrang ma-in love, 'yung parang safe lang,' she shared. She admitted that love eventually disappeared in their relationship, saying, "Nawalan ng love, parang naging magkapatid. You run out of love." "Sa kaniya ko naintindihan kung ano naramdaman sa 'kin ni Dino, 'yung masyadong clingy, 'yung laging nakadikit, 'yung parang universe mo 'yung isang tao. That's why hindi na 'ko galit kay Dino. When I looked back, 'yung eight years na [single] ako, I was trying to figure out what am I doing wrong and what's wrong with the relationships? And then I realized, 'yun nga," she shared. "Mabait, love ako, and then nakita ko 'yung parang, that was me with Dino. So nawawala pala 'pag sobra, it will push you away." Kim was married to Dino before they separated in 2004. Following their split, Kim migrated to the United States to study nursing. Before getting married, the two starred in the hit show, "T.G.I.S." where they were known as a popular love team. —Jade Veronique Yap/CDC, GMA Integrated News
