Cuchera invited to Toronto fest1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteoseph Israel Laban’s Cinemalaya film Cuchera will have its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival from Sept. 8 to 18. According to Funfare correspondent Ferdy Lapuz, Cuchera will screen in the festival’s Discovery Section which spotlights the most exciting work from new and emerging directors from around the world.
Laban is the third Filipino director to be included in this section. Lav Diaz’s Ang Kriminal ng Barrio Concepcion and Brillante Mendoza’s Masahista competed for the Discovery Award in 1998 and 2005, respectively.
Cuchera was in the New Breed Section of the last Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival. It stars Maria Isabel Lopez, Paolo Rivero, Simon Ibarra, CJ Ramos, Jonathan Neri, Kimmy Maclang, Isadora and Sue Prado.
Ferdy sent the following excerpt from the website:
One of the most shocking debuts in recent Filipino cinema, Joseph Israel Laban’s Cuchera deals with the grim fate of low-rent drug mules. (As the introductory titles tell us, hundreds of Filipinos are imprisoned offshore for smuggling.)
Pitched somewhere between ultra-sinister comedy and grimy realism, the film opens as a shaggy-dog story, following two women as they contemplate visiting a faith healer. The narrative then settles on Isabel (Maria Isabel Lopez), a former mule who now hopes to start her own
