Anacbanua (The Child of the Sun)

Director: Christopher Gozum | Producer: Christopher Gozum
Genre: Drama | Produced In: 2009 | Story Teller's Country: Philippines

Synopsis: A middle class and Western-educated poet (Umaanlong) returns to the Pangasinan region, the land of his birth and his ancestors from which he was uprooted for a very long time. He is sick with a lingering physical, mental and spiritual illness. He meets the Musia (Muse) who takes care of him during his illness. The Musia performs a series of rituals that identifies the cause of the Umaanlong’s disease and appeases the ancestral and nature spirits inhabiting sacred spaces in Pangasinan’s physical landscape. While in half-sleep, the Umaanlong’s soul leaves his diseased body. The soul flight transports the Umaanlong to places and time zones in Pangasinan’s landscape and history where he undergoes cosmic immersion, a deep and intense spiritual experience for chosen people like him where the self gets absorbed in the universe. The Umaanlong discovers the Ogaw (child) who serves as a spirit guide in his magical journey. In this cosmic immersion, the Umaanlong undergoes a series of gradual and violent transformations similar to the fermentation of fish sauce, slaughtering of livestock, pounding and shaping of burning metal rods in the anvil, the moulding of the clay into pottery, and the baking of the moist bricks in the fire of the kiln. These series of rituals are tests a novice undergoes when he is called and destined to serve his people. Through this soul travel, the uprooted poet reclaims his primal and ancestral connection to the water (danum), to the land (uma), and to the people (katooan), key figures that mark Pangasinan’s landscape, history and identity. Like his ancestors who belonged to the exclusive ranks of traditional healers, storytellers, and wise leaders in the ancient communities of Pangasinan, the Umaanlong completes these series of difficult tests in a novice’s initiation. The Umaanlong returns to the real world offering himself and his art towards the humanistic progress of his community and the people of Pangasinan. In this renewed and higher state of being, the Umaanlong reunites and becomes one with the Musia.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Makata Issue No.10 is now available online featuring the poetry (in English, Tagalog, and Bikol) of our in-house and new poets Leo Fernandez Almero, Ana Ablaza Baluyut, Danny P. Barbare, Srinjay Chakravarti, Jose Jason L. Chancoco, Kristian S. Cordero, Lee de Guzman, Rosendo M. Makabali, Tony Mercado Peña, Alexander Martin Remollino, Bill Mitsuru T. Shimizu, Keli Stafford, and Nick Zegarac . Also included in this issue the literary column (in Bikol language) Vers Libre by Jose Jason L. Chancoco and Civil War! (Vox Pangasinense) by Fred Natividad. Kanit (anlong kabayaoasan) sakey a kabuasan mamaspasiar si kanit ed paritpit kapetek to'd mapalion a sukal atertera'y linaew say kuan ton manetetel agi! agay laya'y Linaew ay pinuter to'y salik! alioan siak! kuanen Linaew si Agew ta tutunaoen to ak! agi! agay laya'y Agew ay tutunaoen to'y Linaew kanian si Linaew pinuter to'y salik! alioan siak! kuanen Agew si Lurem ta sasanibsani
Read more

About | Santiago Villafania

Image
Santiago Villafania is a bilingual Filipino poet who writes in English and in his native language of Pangasinan. Born in Tuliao, Sta. Barbara, Pangasinan on 31 January 1971, Villafania graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Pangasinan in 1991. Villafania advocates for the resurgence of Pangasinan as a literary language. His works in the vernacular are some of the most representative, if not among the few that comprise that Pangasinan contemporary literary body. In his first book Balikas na Caboloan (Verses from Caboloan), the Pangasinan anlong resurfaces asserting its tradition amidst intersecting and pollinating genres and literary influences. His book of poems, Malagilion: Sonnets tan Villanelles , is an attempt to open the propylaea of literary renaissance in Pangasinan. This second book by Pangasinan’s leading poet today is impressive in both form and substance. Villafania has created 300 sonnets and 50 villanelles in his own language that a
Read more

Gamal: A Collection of Pangasinan Short Stories

Dr. Linda R. Andaya released her first Pangasinan book entitled Gamal tan arum ni'ran antikey ya istorya . A collection of Pangasinan short stories. It's because of this book that I came out with the following sonnet: sonito 216 (ed libron Gamal tan arum ni'ran antikey ya istorya nen Dr. Linda R. Andaya) aliling to'y tanol na tambuyog ono hambayo'd gilig na dayat lalagyaten to'y kailalakan ed akualan na dilin salita sarayan antikey ya istorya so manliliing ed saray musia pian ombulaslas so panulatan dia ed Parnasu na Caboloan egpang irayan pakarukdukan na panangaro tan pangoliran tongtong irayan binmabalitok ed litiraturan Pangasinan parlasan mo'y matam kaluyagan isasalming tonia so kulturam
Read more