Cinema Bravo Cast

Assunta de Rossi, Jay Manalo reunite on the big screen via ‘Higanti’ after 16 years

In her generation, Assunta De Rossi is considered as one of the finest actresses in Philippine Cinema. She bagged the elusive Urian Best Actress for her landmark film “Hubog” (2001) by master director Joel Lamangan.

She had other acting nominations as Best Actress for FAMAS Awards for the same film, and still in Urian Awards for Auraeus Solitos’ “Baybayin” (2012).

On March 22, Assunta is back to her “lead actress status” on film via Gitana Film Productions’ initial offering — “HIGANTI” (Revenge), an explosive action-drama film that tells about how a strong and loving woman fight to get back everything that was stolen from her.
After 16 years since Assunta was launched in “Hubog”, she’s reunited on the big screen with her same leading man, Jay Manalo, in “Higanti”, directed by Rommel Ricafort.

Manalo, likewise an award-winning actor, has an Urian Best Actor trophy for Erik Matti’s “Prosti” (2002) and a FAMAS Best Actor plum for Francis Posadas’ “Bayaran” (2003).

He also won as Best Supporting Actor for Joel Lamangan’s “Aishite Imasu (Mahal Kita) 1941” (2004) from Film Academy of the Philippines (FAP), and had numerous acting nominations in various local award giving bodies.

With the logline “Lintik lang ang walang higanti!”, the movie tells how a wealthy family crumbled because of greed and selfishness.

Others in the cast are Meg Imperial, Katrina Halili, Jon Lucas (member of ABS-CBN’s Hashtags), Kiko Matos, DJ Durano, Alwyn Uytingco, and more.

The screenplay is a collaboration of Rommel Ricafort, Susan Lara, Mario Mendez, Jr., Bimbo Papasin, and Esmeralda Cortez, with Shine Deauna-Ricafort as production manager, and Maria Teresa Cancio as executive producer.

The film was screened last January 21, 2017 in Aeon Chaya Cinema, Nagoya Japan and last February 5 in Nagoya International Center, Japan. Other international screenings will include some countries in the United Arab Emirates on last week of April this year.
“Higanti” opens March 22 (Wednesday) in Philippine cinemas.

About the movie Higanti

“HIGANTI” (Revenge) is the story about how a wealthy family crumbled because of greed and selfishness. It tells how a strong and loving woman fight to get back everything that was stolen from her.

The main character, Leni Buenaobra (Assunta De Rossi), a mother, wife and a businesswoman who was abused by her husband, Congressman Alex Ariete (Jay Manalo), lost her children, Jean (Meg Imperial) and Francis (Jon Lucas) because they chose to stay with their father during the time when Leni fell ill.

Alex married another woman, Dolly (Katrina Halili) after his marriage with Leni got annulled. He brainwashed their children to get all their mother’s hard earned wealth.

The story shows how people should hold on to the Lord and not to take revenge because it is the Lord who will protect us and vengeance is His.

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‘Narnia’s’ William Moseley all grown up in romantic comedy ‘Carrie Pilby’

William Moseley, widely known to be the older son (Peter) in the highly-successful “Chronicles of Narnia” is all grown-up in his latest romantic comedy movie “Carrie Pilby.”

Starring opposite Bel Powley who takes on the titular role “Carrie Pilby,” Moseley plays Cy, Carrie’s neighbour and match to her intellectual ability. Carrie is a 19-year old genius, a year out of Harvard, four years ahead of her peers, living in New York City. Burdened with an overactive moral compass and self-consciously aware of her uncommon intellect, in a city full of people she considers oversexed, deceitful hypocrites, Carrie finds herself isolated, friendless, dateless and unemployed.

To coax Carrie out of her shell, her psychiatrist, Dr. Petrov (Nathan Lane), makes a list of goals she is to achieve between Thanksgiving and the end of the year: 1. Go on a date. 2. Make a friend. 3. Spend New Year’s Eve with someone. 4. Get a pet. 5. Do something you loved as a child. 6. Read favorite book. At first Carrie resists, but when her goal-oriented prodigy brain kicks in, she embraces the task with a vengeance. She has the time, anyway. Her father, (Gabriel Byrne), who has always joined her for the holidays in New York, isn’t coming this year.

As she tackles each item on the list, Carrie begins to make new friends: Tara (Vanessa Bayer) and Doug (Desmin Borges) at the law office where she works the graveyard shift proofreading legal briefs in a job reluctantly arranged by her dad; Cy (William Moseley), her didgeridoo-playing neighbor who, like Carrie, is also a prodigy; and the confused, engaged Matt (Jason Ritter), who thinks he might find clarity about his pending nuptials in the arms of another woman. As Carrie gets to know them, she learns that they are not one-dimensional stereotypes but living, breathing, complex human beings. Carrie begins to understand that humans, like books, can’t be judged by their “covers”.

“When we first meet Cy he’s this seemingly homeless, wild card kind of guy, we don’t really know who he is,” said Moseley. “He seems like a weird hippie living on the streets in New York – it turns out there’s a lot more than meets the eye. He’s actually a very bright guy, he plays like eight musical instruments on an orchestral level, in fact he plays the clarinet for the New York Philharmonic. Carrie and Cy are both prodigies.”

“I think Cy sees in Carrie something a little bit different, you know,” he continues. “He sees in her somebody who isn’t like every other girl, who isn’t crazy ambitious to get somewhere. This is the kind of world we live in now, we live in an insta-world, and she’s quite old fashioned in a way, she reads a lot, I don’t think she’s a media person, so that is attractive to him.”

“Carrie Pilby” opens March 29, 2017 in Philippine cinemas from Pioneer Films.

Cinema Bravo Movie

Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’ teaser poster leads to other worlds

“There are other worlds than these,” proclaims the tagline of the teaser poster of The Dark Tower, based on Stephen King’s most ambitious and expansive story. The long-awaited big screen adaptation stars Idris Elba as Roland Deschain and Matthew McConaughey as Walter Padick.

Check out the newly-released poster below and watch The Dark Tower in Philippine cinemas soon.

In the film, Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) is a young 11-year-old adventure seeker who discovers clues about another dimension called Mid-World. Upon following the mystery, he is spirited away to Mid-World where he encounters the lone frontiersman knight Roland Deschain (Idris Elba), who is on a quest to reach the ‘Dark Tower’ that resides in End-World and reach the nexus point between time and space that he hopes will save Mid-World from extinction. But with various monsters and a vicious sorcerer named Walter Padick (Matthew McConaughey) hot on their trail, the unlikely duo find that their quest may be difficult to complete.

The Dark Tower is directed by Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair), with a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman & Jeff Pinkner and Anders Thomas Jensen & Nikolaj Arcel, based on King’s novels. Producers on the film are Akiva Goldsman, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and Erica Huggins.

The Dark Tower is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International