The SUN HK : Acclaimed Philippine animated film shown in HK

Still photo from the animated film showing Eric and mother in tense scene

An uneasy, dead silence greeted the end of screening of “The Missing”, at M+ Cinema in West Kowloon on Sunday, Sept. 22, as part of the Asean Film Festival 2024.

For one, it touched on the sensitive topic of child sex abuse that has long blighted Philippine society. For another, the film managed to hold the audience in thrall by using rotoscope animation to tell the story of Eric, the lead character.

The audience came to life when the film’s director, Carl Joseph Papa, was called after the screening, giving him a hearty round of applause in a belated but heartfelt accolade for his work.

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Papa’s admission that Eric’s story was his own gave momentary shock to many in the audience, but later led to profuse praises for his bravery in sharing his experiences to help other children going through the same experience.

“The Missing,” (“Iti Mapukpukaw’ in Ilocano) tells the story of Eric, a young animator who has no mouth and cannot speak, communicating only through a white board perpetually slung over his neck.

With help from his boyfriend Carlo and mother Rosalinda, he manages to recover from a long-kept childhood trauma, triggered when he found his long-lost uncle in bed, dead for days, and with flies hovering over his body.

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The catharsis came after Eric dug up his uncle's grave, and recovered from the coffin various body parts symbolizing his long years of struggle against the abuse. Among this was his mouth, enabling him to speak again.

Director Papa bravely told the live audience that Eric's story is his own

Papa said his own trigger came when he learned through friends and family posting condolences on social media that an uncle “who did things to (him) which he shouldn’t have", had died.

“I wrote the story of Eric so I could recover,” said Papa. He also said he wanted the film “to be like a hug to the other victims” and as a “refuge” so other victims may be encouraged to speak up as well.

He said that right from the start he wanted to use animation in the movie as it complemented the state of mind of the main character, Eric.

Also, he said the story he wanted to tell was “gruesome” so the animation helped hide the horrible details of what Eric had to go through.

Papa said that he dared not raise his hopes for his indie movie, which was shot in only four days with a budget of less than HK$200,000.

“I thought I would be the only one inside the cinema, watching it,” he said.

But glowing words about the movie quickly spread, leading it to become not just the top grosser in the 19^th Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival in 2023, but also as Best Film awardee.

It also won the Best Supporting Actress trophy for Dolly de Leon, who played Rosalinda, although it was only her rotoscoped image and voice that could be seen and heard throughout.

Later, the Film Development Council and the Film Academy of the Philippines entered “The Missing” in the Best International Feature Film category at the 96th Academy Awards, making it the first animated film submitted to the prestigious award-giving body by the country.

Though shot in just four days, the animation works for the movie using the rotoscope technique - a laborious process that consists of drawing or tracing over a photo or live-action footage frame by frame, to produce realistic action - took one year and seven months, involving a team of 90 animators.

The other lead characters in the film aside from de Leon were Carlo Aquino who portrays Eric, and Gio Gahol as his friend Carlo.

Work on the movie using rototype animation took 1 year, 7 months

It is the third Philippine-made movie to be screened as part of the 2^nd Asean Film Festival in Hong Kong. The two others were the top-grossing movie, “Hello, Love, Goodbye” which tells the travails of OFWs in Hong Kong, and “K’na the Dreamweaver,” which chronicles the life of South Cotabato’s select weavers whose designs come from visions in a dream.